Two months ago I bought a new computer which came with Windows 10. Although the legacy programs I like worked fine in Windows 7 as I expected they do not run in 10. But now there is a new problem.
I have a legal copy of Office 2003 with installation disc and product key. I installed it and was delighted that it ran fine. All I installed was Word and Excel. I have used each a few times since then. Last week I clicked on an .xls file and up popped a dire warning. “Office is not installed on this computer”. It wanted me to buy Office. However it did offer some alternatives like the chance to provide a product key. I did and it replied that no version of Office was associated with my email address. Then, as if in spite, it informed me that I had until the end of the day before Office went kaput. Well shit.
It offered a help line also. That went to a web page which promptly assigned me a case number. I went through the procedure which was basically the same as I had just done. No dice. It did not recognize my product key. It offered a chat. It was late so I connected the next day.
Bob answered my chat and I outlined the problem. He assigned me a new case number. Guess I should have told him I already had one. We went over everything one step at a time with the same result. Then a ray of hope: he asked if I had the installation disc. I do. Do I have the product key? Yep. Put the CD into the drive he says. Well now, that is a slight problem. My computer, being a new type it no longer has a 5" drive slot. It does have a cool flip up tray that allows three drives, but only up to 3.5". I ask him to wait a minute and I pull the top cover, flip up the tray and hook up my CD drive and leave it sitting on top. Alas, it needs to reboot and I tell Bob I have to restart the machine.
“No problem”, says he. Just run the install and if a program asks for my product key just type it in. I tell him that is exactly what I have already done. He requests the product key. “Oh, that’s an old version of Office we no longer support”. Duh. But he can probably finagle a discount. I tell him it will have to be cheap as I only use it for a few files. He says it will be expensive but - wait for it - think of the new features! I stare at the screen for awhile and disconnect.
So I try to outsmart Office. I figure perhaps it has my old email address on file and installing with the new one has created the problem. I uninstall Office and re-install it with my old email address. No dice. It still tells me it has no Office installed for my current email.
I uninstall it again. This time I go to the Security Firewall and disallow everything to do with Word and Excel. I install it again. No dice.
The only thing I can think of is to install it while the computer is unhooked from the Internet. You must be able to install Office on a stand alone machine, right? I got a feeling the answer is no.
My understanding is if you upgrade a Win 7 machine to Win 10 that has Office 2003 on it, it should run fine with compatibility mode.
So maybe try the install in compatibility mode.
It will probably be tricky trying to get 18 year old software to install correctly. Maybe look for a cheap version of Office 2010? That does install fine in Win 10.
What are you doing in Excel and Word, maybe one of the many free options will work for you instead. Google Docs, Open Office, etc?
It did run fine for a month, though. I didn’t need compatibility mode but I’ll try it. I don’t do anything fancy. Just simple Word documents with no graphics and .xls files that are just lists, no formulas or macros. I’m not familiar with Open Office although I have heard of it. Might be the easiest thing to try.
I’d suggest LibreOffice. I’ve been using it for years. I think it’s kept up to date a little better than Apache Open Office, but the differences are probably small.
Seconding this. Not only is it free, it can also open Microsoft Office formats like .docx, .xlsx, etc., and also save files to those formats as well.
It is also more well-maintained than OpenOffice since LibreOffice was created as a fork by OpenOffice developers who jumped ship when Oracle bought out Sun Microsystems in 2010. This Reddit comment explains the distinctions very well.
Have you re-installed the office compatibility pack? You need it to open some of the new formats with the old version.
Have you set Windows to display the full file name with extension? If not, you may not have files that are compatible with the plain old Office 2003 without compatibility.
The installation and re-installation process requires ‘administrator’ privileges.
But sometimes doesn’t work if you are logged in as an administrator - you sometimes need to do this stuff as a normal user, then run the process as administrator.
It’s quite likely that updating or running the pre-installed demo copy of Office will break your 2003 installation. All versions of Office since about 2000 have a complex method of starting that always goes to the installer first, and checks the signature, and runs the copy of office linked to the installer. Depending on what’s broken, you can sometimes fix this just by running (with admin) the actual word/excel executable that you want, rather than clicking on the document.
New Windows 10 computers often seem to come with a trial version of that latest version Office, which only works for a limited period.
I suspect what happened is that, when you clicked on the Excel file, it tried to open the latest version of Office instead of your old version. And, since it had been over a month, your free trial was over.
I agree the solution is likely to open “Add or Remove Programs” (type programs into the search on your taskbar/ or start menu), then uninstall anything Office related. Then reinstall Office 2003, with your key.
That’s ridiculous. “Bob” should be reminded that when Microsoft introduced “product activation” back with Windows XP and Office XP, they countered complaints about all the things that could go wrong with it by committing that product activation would never be allowed to interfere with a user’s ability to run a product that he had legitimately paid for. This is not a question of “support for Office 2003”, it’s a question of meeting their commitments to their stupid activation scheme.
Definitely, if there is anything on the system that looks like any vestige of an evaluation copy of Office 365, uninstall it before trying to install Office 2003 again. And yes, because of the activation (unless this is a corporate volume license edition) you have to be connected to the internet for it to activate.
One thing you might try if automatic activation doesn’t seem to work is activating by telephone. If you get the message that “phone activation is no longer supported”, try it anyway. I believe the number to call for the US and Canada is (888) 652-2342. Basically, see if Microsoft is willing to honor the commitment they made.
I am not having any problems activating Office 2000, 2003, and 97. Nor does the description given by the OP match the typical behavior of those products when there are activation problems. Rather, they suggest installation problems.
Installation of Office 2003 is a complex process even on WinXP, because of the security processes added to the OS and to the installer. Win10 adds much more to the security. The fundamental problem MS tried to avoid with Office 2000 and WinXP was to prevent the Office products and the OS being subverted by code changes. On Windows 10 he whole system is designed to prevent you from successfully installing anything, then allowing specific restricted exemptions to the general rule. Applications like Office 365 automatically and relentlessly repair their installation if anything like earlier versions of Office interfere with it.
There’s always a great deal of wishful thinking when there are problems with MS products.
UPDATE: I have made some progress and it looks like a combination of things from BigT and Wolfpup’s posts.
During the installation I noticed that it installed the files into the directory called C:/Program Files (x86)/Microsoft Office/Office 11. There is also a directory called Office 16 as well as a completely different Microsoft Office directory under C:/program Files (without the x86). Opening Office 11 shows many files with the dates from 2003. Among them are the Excel.exe and Word.exe files. Clicking on them opens the programs just fine. Hmm.
I go back to the icons installed on my desktop during the installation. Aha - they are different icons - a newer version. And when I right click on them they have no properties, no “target”, no “start in” listed When I click on those I get the described warnings and call to upgrade.
So I deleted they newer icons and created shortcuts from the .exe files in the Office 11 directory. Now Word 2003 seems to work fine and it associated .doc files with it. If I click on a .doc it opens in Word 2003 with no warning. Excel 2003 also works but it did not associate the .xls files with it. If I click on the Excel icon on the desktop it opens Excel 2003 and I can open any .xls from there. But if I double click directly on an .xls file it opens a new, colorful version of Excel with the warning that mentions Office 365. I cannot figure out how to associate .xls files with Excel 2003. When I right click on an .xls file and select “Open With” and browse and select the Excel 2003 icon it doesn’t “take”, it still opens the newer Excel.
So a minor inconvenience but so far I can open all my files. I’ll see if anything changes after a month.
