Mixed Office 2002 and 2003 environment - Known issues?

[meastaugh1]

Since CES are forcing us to upgrade to 2003 on SIMS computers, or lose functionality, I was wondering whether anyone is running a mix of these two versions in their school, and whether they had encountered many compatibility issues?

 

I believe they should generally be compatible, but have experienced some 2003 documents which would only render in the 2003 viewer.

 

thanks

[NetworkGeezer]

Documents produced in PowerPoint, Publisher and Access 2003 tend to be readable in 2003. There is an option to Save As the previous version but trying to get people to use it is a lesson in futility.

 

Also you can only have the latest Outlook. I remember something about mail filtering rules but I think that applied more Outlook 2000. You could either run in mixed mode or 2003 native.

[Geoff]

Amusingly I find OO.org to be more compatible with Office 2k3 than Office 2k/XP is.

 

Would 'upgrading' your Office 2k/XP installations to Open Office be realistic?

[meastaugh1]

Would be nice, but does SIMS (specifically printing/exporting .net marksheets) like OO? I tried installing, but sims.net didn't seem to be having any of it.

[Geoff]

No. You need MS Office for that. What I was suggesting was that you stick to MS Office on your 'admin' machines that run Sims. Then anything else can have OO.org (curriculum machines mainly).

 

It's how we do it in a number of schools here. Mainly to cut down on licensing costs/hassle.

[meastaugh1]

It's certainly something worth looking at. OO/SO was on the cards when we were upgrading from 97, but we didn't proceed because users were thought to be too familiar with the Microsoft way. Although, I think OO will be much more familiar than Office 2007 is. We also have a dependency upon sharepoint, albeit minor at the moment, which again, requires Office 2002 at least, for any sort of integration.

 

I think the most frustrating thing is that sims.net will export the xml marksheets to the temp folder in the user's profile, which can be opened in Excel 2002 fine. But SIMS will only consider launching 2003. aargh! :x

[MkII]

Capita are fixing that - you shouldn't need to be reliant on Office2003 after December (is my understanding).

[meastaugh1]

Capita are fixing that - you shouldn't need to be reliant on Office2003 after December (is my understanding).

 

Really? Do you know if there are any articles that state this?

thanks

[MkII]

Phil Neal of Capita has said a couple of times, on this thread: http://www.edugeek.net/index.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&p=46431#46431 and on the Capita forums.

 

It's also my understanding that Capitas' tie in to MS Office is unlawful under EU law.