Office 365 + Office 2003 + xlsl = fail

[gerardsweeney]

Hello, all..

 

Our authority uses Glow, which is an externally hosted Sharepoint-based service which can be shared out between all schools in Scotland. (Probably over simplifying it, but there y'go).

 

Glow are migrating to an Office 365 type environment.

 

Our client workstations (mostly 7 Pro with IE9) have Office 2003 installed (yeah yeah, I know).

 

On the 365 environment, we can open xlsx files in the Excel Web Part. If we want to open the file within the client Excel we run into problems.

 

XLS files - open fine

XLSX - Excel opens with a message saying we couldn't log you in, or words to that effect.

 

The clients have the latest (last?) Office 2010 Compatibility Pack open. If I double click an XLSX file, it opens fine.

If I do a Save As on the Sharepoint/365 based doc, then I can open the Saved As version fine.

If I change the Document Library prefs on 365 to have it open on client instead of in browser, then it opens correctly.

 

It's only if I use the Edit in Excel drop down in 365 that it all goes wrong.

 

The nearest Google-fu I can find is a suggestion that the MIME types are wrong at the server end, but that seems unlikely since it's 365 themselves??

 

I know I won't be able to edit the 365 documents live on the workstation (unless someone can prove otherwise - which'd make me very happy).

 

I get the same issue with DocX files, so I'm assuming it's something to do with the Compatibility Pack not understanding SSL??

 

Any suggestions gratefully received. Other than upgrading to Office 2010/2013 I mean

 

Cheers,

Gerard

[Michael]

Unfortunately you have little choice but to upgrade Office. There's no way around it, plus Office 2003 is finished come April 2014.

 

Also - you need IE10 to work with Office 365 properly, as IE10 has a built in Spell Check. Office 365 does work with IE9, but you lose out on some of the functionality, such as being unable to check for typos.

[funkyfin2000]

Yup, I concur - Office 2003 is not supported in O365. Extended support finishes in April 2014 same as XP.

 

I also recommend IE10 or IE11 to use full functionality. It's exactly what we are advising our schools at present.