Vista & Word

[Kurashu]

Just a quick question: Does anyone know what verisons of Word work with Vista? I just found out my copy didn't come with word (or for that matter, any of Microsoft office). With Office 2007 costing 150$, I'd like to save some money. We have a copy of 2000 and one of 2003 somewhere (not sure exactly where though).


Alternatively, if someone could point me to where I could get a version of Word that works with Vista for a relatively cheap price, that'd be great too.

 

[drothgery]

Standalone Word is $150? That's odd, given this...

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16832116135

... which is probably what MS wants home users to buy (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote for $120).

 

[XCorvis]

Office 2003 definitely works. I think if you go to microsoft's office web site, you can check compatibility of older versions. 2000 probably works OK too.

If you can justify the cost, I think 2007 is really nice, but about 1 in 10 people absolutely hate it, so you might try a demo first.

 

[delericho]

I had Word 2000 installed on my laptop briefly, and it seemed to work okay. Unfortunately, I had to upgrade my Office package, as Outlook 2000 refused to work. I really don't like the new interface with Word 2007, BTW, and especially since there's no option to revert back to the 'Classic' interface.

 

[frankthedm]

Can open office work with Vista?

 

[XCorvis]

Can open office work with Vista?

From the website: "Platforms currently supported include Microsoft Windows (98 - Vista), GNU/Linux ("Linux"), Sun Solaris, Mac OS X (under X11), and FreeBSD."

So yes, it should work.

 

[dvvega]

One of the main reasons software applications may not run on Vista is the concept of the 'virtual directory'.

Unbeknownst to the average user (and older software), Program Files exists under /user/Program Files.

This breaks a lot of applications since they are still relying on the old C:\Program Files location.

So if something doesn't work it might be this.

I'm sure you can manually change Registry Entries etc to accomodate the move.

D

 

[Kurashu]

Can open office work with Vista?

And best of it's free. Thanks.

 

[XCorvis]

One of the main reasons software applications may not run on Vista is the concept of the 'virtual directory'.

Unbeknownst to the average user (and older software), Program Files exists under /user/Program Files.

This breaks a lot of applications since they are still relying on the old C:\Program Files location.

So if something doesn't work it might be this.

I'm sure you can manually change Registry Entries etc to accommodate the move.

D

That doesn't sound correct to me. All my apps are installed in C:\Program Files, which appears to be right where it's supposed to be. If it is virtual, it's completely transparent, so why would it cause problems? Do you have a source for that info? I couldn't find anything about it with a few minutes of searching.

Now, vista does do some neat stuff with virtual folders when apps try to write to the c:\Program Files location without correct privs. It makes a temporary folder someplace and writes the changes to that, allowing the program to run but not allowing it to take stupid security risks.

Anyway, here's a huge list of compatible apps: http://www.iexbeta.com/wiki/index.php/Windows_Vista_Software_Compatibility_List

 

[dvvega]

Yes the virtual directory is transparent ... and it causes a lot of headaches for developers.

I teach game design and Visual Studio for example has intermittent problems directly related to the virtual directory system. There is an SP for this now, however there aren't fixes for every application as of this time.

D