Microsoft has launched an update for Office 2000, XP and 2003 that allows them to open and save in the new Office 2007 XML format.

However the installer doesn't work on Win9x.

Can this be over come?


Link to update...

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details...;displaylang=en

what sort of installer is it? it says it doesnt support 9x but it support 2k it might work but some apis may need to be implemented so first you need to overcome the virsion checker

I can extract it with Winzip

basically contains an .msi , .cat and .cab file


the .msi file fails to install

I'm lost.

you need to edit the msi file with orca 2 and remove the version checker so it can be installed

Is that easy to do?

I really have no idea

yes you just open the msi in orca and modify the launch conditions

Thanks.

Downloaded it but it wont run on Win98 either.

I'll give it a go on my Windows XP machine tomorrow.

I took the Compatability patch and orca to my WinXp machine.

I installed orca

I extracted the compatibility .exe into a folder.

I opened the .msi file with orca

went to "Launch Control" in the Tables column

and deleted the sole line in its condition.

Saved and then closed Orca


Took the folder back to my Win98 machine, double clicked on the .msi and it installed

Now Word 2000 on Windows 98 can open Office 2007 open XML files



The fact Microsoft put a line in disabling Win9x support is pathetic!!!

I might repack it in an .exe and make it available for other Win98 users too.

it works perfectly thats good to know,
you must have downloaded orca 3
orca 2 is the version you would need to edit the msi on 98 but it doesnt matter now

Please - links Orca 2 (3) and correct msi files?

well heres orca 1 and 2
http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?s=&...st&p=568281

Yes, this tip its correctly, open Dokument M$ 2007 OK!

but NOT correctly writing (save) this format (error reading (!??) with saving format Office 2000)...

Good point.

I never tried saving it as a Word 2007 .docx file only as a .doc

Hmmm,

might need the brain trust to check this out for us?


or maybe its about time that I should be moving to OpenOffice

hi, I install this 2007 compatibility and it works o.k. yesterday m$ launched 3 fixes for it (kb934062, kb933688, kb934393). these fixes are exe files and orca can't make them be install on win98se. any idea? thnx

note that MS released an updated version of the MS Office 2007 compatibility pack on April 20. If you downloaded and installed the Office 2007 compatibility pack before april 20, uninstall the old one and download & install the new version.

Does the newer version fix the saving problem?

yes, i fix newer version (with ORCA) - saving problem keep....

Philco, galahs, dave237 and awergh:

Microsoft has revised the Office 2007 Compatibility Pack again. Published date is now June 18, 2007:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details...;displaylang=en

Thanks for the info erpdude8.

On latest version, saving still fails. I'll try on XP to see if it does the same.
Despite this, it reads *.docx fine so that's not too bad...

I tried to add .the DOCX support to Office 2000 on Windows 98. But, I failed. Both Office 200 and Windows 98 are Polish language versions.

Without KernelEx installed, an attempt to open a .DOCX file gives a binary data in the document. I think there is something wrong with decompressing routine.

With KernelEx patch, all I'm getting is an error message. (Error in the file, or something like that (Translation from Polish))

I tried Your procedure on multiple compatibility package versions. The result is always the same. It istalls on Windows 98, but it works on Windows 2000, only.

Tell me the error in polish. is it "Blad pliku"? if it's rather "Blad w pliku" it's maybe the .DOCX that fails.

The file is a proper one. It opens properly on Windows 2000.

The exact message is: "Wystąpił błąd podczas otwierania pliku".

Also. Without a KernelEx update, there is no error message, at all. The file is opened, but the data is damaged (looks like binary).

They didn't diable it. They put an artificial limitation in place. Some people go and upgrade their OS to support programs/games/utilities that work just fine on the prior OS. MS have been sued for things like this in the past and you'd think they'd learn their lesson by now. There are even some XP only programs that will install and run on 98/ME just fine.

Sun ODF Plugin 1.1 for Microsoft Office - tested?
System Requirements:
Enhance your Microsoft Office with the ODF Plug In.
Microsoft Windows 98, ME, 2000 (Service Pack 2 or higher), XP or Vista,
Microsoft Office 2000, Office XP, Office 2003, or the equivalent standalone version of Microsoft Office Word, Excel or PowerPoint


http://www.sun.com/software/star/odf_plugin/get.jsp

I've installed the Office 2007 Compatibility Pack on Windows 98SE with Office XP.
Two problems:
Excel gives a startup error:
Run-Time error '49':
Bad DLL calling convention
It seems to work okay after pressing the 'End' button.
Outlook and the Outlook Control Panel applet crashes.
I don't use Outlook so I'm not sure if this was caused by the Pack or whether it's been like this for a while...

Other than that, it seems to work okay so far.

Oh, and I also installed the Sun ODF Plugin 1.1 for Microsoft Office although I have not really tested it yet...

Update 29 October:
It appears that the Outlook crash is related to Tihiy's Revolutions Pack 7. Tihiy is looking into it.
See this post.

Update 30 October:
Tihiy has fixed the Outlook crash problem in Revolutions Pack 7.

I give up. I've uninstalled this pack now since I could not actually get it to load or save any Office 2007 files...
It uses MS XML 5 which I believe is incompatible with Windows 98SE...
Some say it works for loading Office 2007 files... I just could not get it to work...

BTW, it is interesting to note that Office 2007 Excel, PowerPoint, and Word files are actually PKZIP containers with a different file ending.
If they are renamed to a .zip ending then you can extract the .xml files inside - Cool aye?

Even after deinstalling I still have my Excel startup error...
All the Pack files are gone, so it must have modified some registry setting...

If anyone else has actually got this pack working, at least to load Office 2007 files, then please post how you did it!

Greetings folk.

I think this topic is VERY important, so I'm "bumping" it to the top!

I am a devoted user of Win98se. I also have MS Office 2000 on my PC.

As more and more individuals and businesses start to use Office 2007, there is
going to be a real problem for those of us with Win98 (and ME) opening those
files.

SO ....

Please - to those tech-experts out there - PLEASE do experiment until you can
give us some solid advice on how to make this work.

As an example -

For Office 2003 users, Microsoft says that they must FIRST install the Excel, Word and Power Point 2003 readers AND THEN install the Office Compatibility Pack.

It would therefore appear that us users of Win98 (and I guess ME) should also be
thinking along the lines of installing those three "readers" first. However, as with the
full Compatibility Pack, the Microsoft site says that none of them support Win98.

So perhaps the .msi files need to be changed on those three readers, get them installed, and
then install the full Compatibility pack - again with the .msi file "doctored"

I eagerly await all your expert advice. As I said, I really believe this is going to be
a very important - in fact critical - thing to get sorted out.

Thanks as always and best wishes ...

Dr. Mac

With the compatibility patch, hacked to install on Win98Se, I can read Office 2007 files but can't save them as Office 2007.

I can save them as Office 2000 format without a problem :correct:

It seems I had smoked something last time I tested.
Now I confirm what other say : the modded compatibility pack installs, but I can't open/write .docx files. It ends with an "error while opening file".
I Installed latest version (11/19/07) but I get the same results.

Here's a ".docx" sample for testing purpose.

Okay, I have located the source of my Excel startup error...
It is an Excel add-in called Odfaddin...
So... Looks like the Sun ODF Plugin 1.1 for Microsoft Office at least has a problem with Excel...
No other issues to report with the ODF Plugin although I have not actually tested saving/opening odf files... Stay tuned...
I had tested the Office 2007 pack opening (saved from Office 2007) and saving .???x formats (Word, Excel, PowerPoint) with no joy.
Access 2007 and Publisher 2007 do not appear to use XML formats.
I have not tried the latest Office 2007 Comp Pack... Will try it out...

Greetings folk

I'm "bumping" this up because opening (or trying) to open Office 2007 files is becoming a real pain.

Has anybody yet worked out a solution that really WORKS for those of us using Win 98se and Office 2000?

PLEASE share your solutions.

Thanks.

Dr. Mac

Yep, install Open Office.
http://www.openoffice.org

Only the Novel edition of the OpenOffice is able to open DOCX files, as far as I know. So, it is hardly a solution, I believe.

Whoops I've been using Novel's edition. I assumed the main Open Office would have supported it too. Looks like the stock OpenOffice has it planned in a near release.


I have managed to get the Compatability pack to open .docx files in Word 2000. Then I just save them as .doc files




Also try http://docx-converter.com/


If your super desperate you can always use a (paid) online converters like http://www.docx2doc.com/ for Word documents.

Greetings.

Thanks for your replies folks.

Much appreciated.

Dr. Mac

It appears that there is partial success with the Office 2007 Comp. Pack running with Office 2000, at least to load Office 2007 files.
Office XP, however, looks like a no go zone...
I don't really see why there should be a difference since it's just a filter...
Surely the actual Office files would not interfere with the filter?
Sadly it appears so...

I try this: docXConverter 2.0 for Windows (shareware) and > DOCX convert this software corectly to RTF (compatible with word2000).

(Sorry, i correct link...)

Whait a minute! What kind of shareware is this?

It is just an online converter, isn't it. It requires an E-Mail adderss to be supplied. I see a danger of being spammed after using this converter.

Sorry, good link other program: http://www.panergy-software.com/buy/download.html

According to the license agreement this is a commercial application. It is forbidden to make copies of this application except of the archival purposes. So, it is not a shareware, for sure.

The trial version excludes the commercial and public usage. So, it is ment for the private use, only.

I've had an error logged in the Windows bootlog.txt file for some months.
It stated that the file CAMBRIA.TTC failed to load.
At first I thought this was an incorrectly named TTF file...
So, I renamed the file and registry entries to CAMBRIA.TTF...
No change.
So then I copied the font file and deinstalled the font... Problem gone.
I attempted to reinstall CAMBRIA.TTC into Windows Fonts but it would not install...
After a little digging, I determined that TTC files are TrueType Collection files that contain multiple TTF fonts.
Then after some more digging, I discovered that CAMBRIA.TTC is installed with Office 2007...
So... Even though I deinstalled the Office 2007 Compatibility Pack, it left fonts behind.
I also found out that Microsoft created a utility called BREAKTTC that separates the TTC file into individual TTF font files.
BREAKTTC was part of the Microsoft TrueType SDK...
Problem is that the Microsoft TrueType SDK has been removed from the developer area of the Microsoft FTP Site...
Anyway, I located a copy of the SDK (ttsdk.zip) and used BREAKTTC.EXE to create the two TTF files that I called CAMBRIA.TTF and CAMBRIAM.TTF(Cambria and Cambria Maths).
These two TTF files install and work with no problem in Windows 98SE.
The odd thing is that the BREAKTTC utility is from 1994 and the SDK itself is from 1996.
The only Windows around in 1994 was Windows for Workgroups 3.11 and Windows NT 3.5...
It's a mystery why the TTC file would not work in Windows 98SE...

So, if anyone has been playing around with the Office 2007 Compatibility Pack and has noticed a font loading error with CAMBRIA.TTC, then here is the fix!

I have followed the instruction and install compatibility pack on win98 with office xp, but when i open docx file then word ask me to choose the encoding format and none of them give me a results that i can read.

Can anyone help me?

Problem Solved! Here's the real McCoy:
Native Winds Docx2Rtf is a freeware file converter for MS Word 2007 Docx and OpenOffice Sxw and Odt files.
NW Docx Converter (FREE)

Hi.

Originally, I tried to resolve this problem using KernelEx to install the FileFormatConverters
package, only to get the following error :
http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showto...mp;#entry793681

Now with this thread, new hope. I downloaded and installed Orca 2.0.3790.0, extracted the FileFormatConverters.exe contents with 7-Zip, deleted the "LaunchCondition" entry in the MSI file, double-clicked the modified MSI and installed without any apparent errors. So far, so good. (I even rebooted just in case.)

However, all that happens when I try to open a 'docx' file in Word 2000 is the error "There was an error opening the file", followed by a blank document. Opening an 'xlsx' file in Excel 2000 gives an error message to the effect "Sorry, this file is corrupted, would you like to salvage some text from it?". (The files open OK with the 2007 MS Office applications on an XP machine.)

Any ideas? I believe I've followed the above recipe exactly, yet no joy.

The FileFormatConverters.exe file is 28 868 320 bytes in size and was downloaded on 2008/04/23. I tried a new download today and the current file is identical. Has anyone had success with this current release of FileFormatConverters.exe?

Joe.

Another possibility is to use GO-OO OpenOffice edition. It both runs on Windows 98 sysems and supports the Microsoft Office 2007 file formats.

Yet another possibility is to use OpenOffice.org 3. It can work on Windows 98 with the newest KernelEx.

Hi Sfor,

Installed Gooo 2.4.1-5 today to try it out with 'docx' documents.

Results were VERY similar to "NW Docx Converter" (docx2rtf). Unfortunately, this means that side-by-side text (not sure if this is some type of table) is split into two sections (like two paragraphs) and no longer lines up.

Installed the "odf-converter-2.0-2.oxt" package and this made no difference (other than introduce a new step in the document loading process, for choosing the input format).

So far, the most accurate 'docx' interpretation I have achieved is with the "OpenXMLViewer" application. This terminates with an error on W98, but leaves behind an "output.xhtml" document in the %temp% directory, which is the converted document.

As for 'xlsx' documents, Gooo 2.4.1-5 does at least load the basic spreadsheet, although graphs are an OLE link that crash the application if you click on them. This is better than nothing, since the other OpenXML applications I've tried simply crash when presented with these 'xlsx' documents.

Well, this is some progress at least. I can now open 'docx' and 'xlsx' documents, although not as accurately as I'd like. I just wish I could run the official "FileFormatConverters" package using either KernelEx or the Orca hack. Can anyone identify what version (say by file size and download date) of "FileFormatConverters.exe" they had success with using the Orca hack?

Joe.

A further update ...

Found a new converter at SourceForge that can input (and output) OpenXML documents : ODFConverter command line OpenXML/ODF translator tool.

This converter requires "dotNet 2.0 framework" to be installed (note, I seemed unable to install this until I temporarily uninstalled KernelEx 0.3.6a).

This converter is also horribly slow.

However, the resultant ODF documents (which Gooo 2.4.1-5 supports very well) are the most accurate translation of the original OpenXML documents of everything I've tried so far. :-)

Next thing to try is the Sun "ODF Plugin for Microsoft Office 1.2" package, to give Office the capability to handle those ODF documents created by ODFConverter.

Joe.