Hi all,

Word 2002 replaced the old Word 2000 'Optimize for Word 97' option with
the new 'Disable Features Introduced After' option, which brought some
issues I documented nearly two years ago in the following post:

http://groups-beta.google.com/group/...57a3e1fc8a3dcd

(Search dejanews under 'Odd Behavior in Word XP Involving Disable
Features' if above link misbehaves. Or try my name... My original
post was March 28, 2003)

Basically, what I found was that under Word 2002 the Disable Features
checkbox would spring to checked during document saves, both
interactively (intermittently) and under VBA/automation (consistently).
This would cause documents with Word 2000 features, such as nested
tables, to be downgraded to Word 97 format even though the user had
taken no action to request or configure that. There were also some odd
interactions between the old .OptimizeForWord97 and new
..DisableFeatures document properties. This is just the nutshell - the
cite above has all the details.

About a year ago MS acknowledged the problem in kb article:

http://support.microsoft.com/default...b;en-us;832349

though that cite still lists the problem as unresolved.

Now fast forward: Having just (belatedly) acquired Word 2003 I'm
seeing that the issue may have been fixed or at least papered over - in
fact, I'm having trouble programmatically forcing documents down to
Word 97 features (not something I'm at all wanting to do btw ,
leading me to suspect/hope that MS may have taken some emergency or
interim action in Word 2003 or it's SP's. I'm on 11.5604.5606 w/no
SP's listed.

Does anyone on the group have personal knowledge of the bug and it's
current status, and whether that status changed between Word 2002 and
2003 versions? Anyone had trouble with Word 2003 nuking Word 2000+
features such as nested tables, especially in COM automated document
management applications?

TIA,
David McBride