Office applications Toolkit

Story: MPs hit by Office 2003, Word 2007 incompatibility

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Irritate the User into Upgrading

Do you really wonder why they don't warn about the incompatible document format? They didn't do it the last time they made this kind of change, either, so it is no surprise. In my opinion this goes in the same category as the hated Vista "UAC" - MS decided that they could advance their agenda by irritating the user. What percentage of ordinary users do you think will either never find out about the "free" document format converter, or will not have the confidence or ability to download and install it, and so will just give up and upgrade to MS Office 2007? At that point, it is "mission accomplished", one more notch in the belt for Microsoft.

This is one of the primary reasons why recommending or helping with an Office upgrade is the absolute LAST thing on my list. When confronted with someone who has this problem, the steps are simple:

- Recommend OpenOffice.org 3.0. Several times. It is the one sure way to end up with a HAPPY user out of this; all the other options consist of putting band-aids on MS botches.

- If they are on pre-2007 Office, and the problem is their receiving documents, download and install the Office document format converter patch.

- If they are on Office 2007, and the problem is with others receiving their documents, show them how to save in Office 2003 format, as well as others that might be useful.

As Ator said previously, if you choose to "dance with the devil", you have to pay for the orchestra; if you choose to continue to dance with the same devil, after seeing the perils and having to solve one problem... well.... keep a good supply of band-aids on hand.

jw 28/11/2008

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