Should MS Office XP work on Vista?

[hiaasenrocks]

I just got a new laptop and I'm trying to use my copy of Office XP but every time I launch Word, it locks up.

I am able to use the trial version of Office 2007 (or whatever it's called). Hmmm.

Thanks for any info.

[trotsky]

1. I don't see why it wouldn't.

Have you been to http://officeupdate.microsoft.com to make sure Office is patched & up-to-date?

[hiaasenrocks]

4. Thanks for the response.

No, I haven't done that.

In fact, in the meantime I called my friend who gave me the disk. He said "Don't update it" and I'm taking that to mean he got a version that he shouldn't have. Hmmm.

[trotsky]

7. Heh, yeah, I'd be leery.

I can second the recommendation below for OpenOffice. I have set it up for several people who needed office-type apps but couldn't afford a copy of MS Office. The word processor and spreadsheet editor work very similarly to Word and Excel, respectively.

[Uncle Sinister]

2. XP *should* work, but a better solution is to use ...

the briiliant, and free , Open Office:
http://www.openoffice.org/

Start breaking free of the evil empire!

[hiaasenrocks]

3. Thanks for the recommendation. I have a question...

(I know, I should research this myself, but I trust individual opinions more than marketing clips...)

How does the word processing program compare to MS Word? And can other people receive my files and open them with ease?

Thanks.

[CK_John]

5. You can choose to save your word document as .doc files and they will then be

opened by MS or OpenO. It is a sizable download, but you can order a CD.
<http://distribution.openoffice.org/cdrom/index.html#cdrom>.

Another option is portable applications which you can run OpenOffice from a USB flash drive.
<http://www.aplusfreeware.com/categories/business/appl.html>

[Uncle Sinister]

6. In both feel and function it compares to....

Office 2000. Admittedly missing a few bells and whistles of later versions, but still a very polished product. It's arranged very much like MS Office, and virtually all the commands you're used to in Word will work exactly the same in OO Write.

[hiaasenrocks]

8. Thanks again to all who answered. I'm going to give OO a try. n/t

[hiaasenrocks]

9. Update: For those who may have tried OpenOffice based on this thread...

I highly recommend it!

I do a lot of writing, so I got it mainly for their "Writer" program.

There were a few minor things I didn't like about it at first (especially the border around the text area that shows you the margins -- why do I need to see that all the time?) but I was able to play around with the settings and change all appearances to what I like, what I am used to.

Also, make sure if you are using this software that you're careful to save your docs so potential recipients of your work can open them. There is a setting where you can change the default to be compatible with MS Office. If I didn't feel so lazy now, I'd explain how to change it, but if anyone has any questions, just ask and I'm sure I (or someone else) can help. I'm still playing around with it and learning.

REALLY glad I didn't go out and spend a couple hundred bucks on Microsoft software. Thanks again to the folks who recommended this to me.

[RoyGBiv]

10. Just to add some comments ...

Political bit:

If the OpenDocument format were adopted, this nonsense about having to save everything in MS DOC format wouldn't be an issue. I could rant for days about this, but I'll leave it at that.

Quirks in OO:

I don't like the way it handles tables. Granted, I don't find much use for tables in a word processor. If I want formatting of that variety, other solutions are better suited for it. But, since we are as a people generally forced to use MS formats for things, and since a lot of people do seem hell bent on using tables in their documents, this can be a problem. Or at least I've found it to be.

Footnotes are handled a bit differently than in Word, and I have to say here I prefer the way MS does it. I actually *prefer* neither. Since I do a lot of writing and editing that requires extensive use of footnotes, I would like a smoother method of adding them generally.

I too don't like the default appearance of the word processor, but as you note, it can all be changed.

[Gore1FL]

11. I have office 2000 running on my Vista Laptop w/o issue

[hiaasenrocks]

12. Some comments after using OpenOffice for a couple of weeks: Don't like it.

There are several issues with formatting while typing, a few things that really get on your nerves if you're trying to do any professional writing.

So...I went out and bought MS Office 2007.

Thanks again to those who participated in this thread. No slam on you guys, of course, but I've never had good luck with the imposter software out there, and this turned out to be a similar experience.