Installing OfficeXP AND Office97 on the same machine.. Possible?

lokem · May 31, 2002

Hi all,

I currently have OfficeXP installed on my system (WinXP Pro). Due to some requirements, I need to install Office97 as well to test compatibility. Anyone knows whether this can be done safely without screwing up the current installation of OfficeXP?

TIA.

Vehementi · May 31, 2002

Maybe.

Try it! If something goes wrong just go to Add/Remove Programs and remove them (both).

If you have Office 97 on right now, Office XP will probably try to upgrade and just replace it.

If you have Office XP and you install Office 97, it'll go to a different directory, and you may have both w/o a problem.

Just be sure to tell the difference in your Start menu...

Phantasm66 · May 31, 2002

AKAIK All versions of Office post 97 are programmed to remove any older versions that they find and then replace them with the newer version.

But I will admit I have not tested this.

You might be put in the position of having a smaller extra windows partition with ANOTHER windows installed there which has the older legacy version of Office installed on that.

TS | Thomas · May 31, 2002

I don't think it actually will install on XP, if it does you'll want to have Office XP uninstalled first though

PHATMAN5050 · May 31, 2002

I bet it will work, it will probably do what Microsoft has its OS do when an older version of windows is put in the disc drive. It will just tell u that it is older and then ask if you'd like to continue.

lokem · Jun 1, 2002

Thanks for the info pple. I've tried and it didn't even install. It said that the copy has been installed in multiple PCs b4 just becoz I've installed it on the same PC b4 installing OfficeXP... Grr...

StormBringer · Jun 1, 2002

Try uninstalling OXP, then install O97, then install OXP. When I installed OXP, I had O2K already on my system, it asked if I wanted to keep the previous version and install OXP or if I wanted to replace O2K with OXP. I don't know if it will work though.

lokem · Jun 2, 2002

Thanks for the suggestion Storm. Hopefully Off97 won't complain about the same thing after OffXP is uninstalled...

SNGX1275 · Jun 3, 2002

From first hand expierence you will have some complications that are hidden when uninstalling OXP. I did that once when my Outlook got all mucked up, I restarted, then reinstalled. But somehow OXP remembered exactly how I had my folders and such set up in Outlook and I'm sure it remembers some other stuff about other applications in the office suite. I imagine it plants some stuff in the registry you'd have to remove before you can actually completely uninstall OXP.
But I'm not sure how these remembered things will affect an O97 install, but I'd keep this in mind if your first attempt at installing O97 after Uninstalling OXP fails, before you give up.

Rick · Jun 3, 2002

What exactly is this "compatability" you need? You may not need Office 97 since all it really does is take up space...

Office XP saves documents in XP format - This is true - But you can easily select "Word 97/2000/6.0" compatiblie formats too.

You can also change this in the options so it is the default format when saving. This way, your XP documents are readable in previous office versions. There's also a number of other formats... Such as universal TXT and RTF files.

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Installing OfficeXP AND Office97 on the same machine.. Possible?

lokem Newcomer, in training

Vehementi TechSpot Paladin

Phantasm66 Newcomer, in training

TS | Thomas Newcomer, in training

PHATMAN5050 Newcomer, in training

lokem Newcomer, in training

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