Outlook 2003 with Office 2010

[Akinbiyi]

I have been running Outlook 2003 using Word 2003 as my email editor for many years. I have just installed Office 2010 Home and Student edition which does not include Outlook 2010. I have left Word 2003 [as part of Office 2003 professional edition] on my computer. When I start to compose a new email, I get the error message "microsoft word is set to be your e-mail editor. However, Word is unavailable, not installed or is not the same version as outlook. The outlook email editor will be used instead". I have reset the email format in tools-options-mail format to "use word 2003 as the email editor" but to no avail. I need to use Word as my email editor for autocorrect options, signatures, etc. I have spoken to Microsoft support and they cannot offer a solution other than to buy Outlook 2010. I surely cannot be the only person who has experienced this problem.

The only reason I wanted to install Office 2010 was to be able to read the increasing number of attachments I receive in docx or xlsx format and to save the bother of converting them everytime. Otherwise, I am completely happy with Office 2003 apart from now having wasted the money on a 3 licence version of Office 2010.

A simple uninstall of Office 2010 still left me with the same problem. I have restored my computer to the point prior to installing Office 2010 and Outlook is now working fine. The only action I haven't yet tried is to uninstall Office 2003, then install Office 2010 and thenre-install Office 2003.....which I am loathe to do because of all the updates required. Does anyone have any ideas?

[JoeP517]

If you like Office 2003 leave it be. Install Download details: Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack for Word, Excel, and PowerPoint File Formats to be able to read, save, & update in the newer formats.

NOTE: If you receive Office 2007 or Office 2010 files that have new features not in Office 2003 those features will not be available to you.

Joe

[WendellB]

FYI - you definitely do not want to uninstall Office 2003 Pro, install Office 2010, and then reinstall Office 2003 - I would take Joe's approach.

[Akinbiyi]

Thank you both for your advice. I already had the Compatibility pack installed. One reason for wanting Word 2010 is that the conversion the first time I receive a docx file is quite tedious, and quite slow on my netbook. The other reason is that the docx files may contain Word 2010 features I need to keep. I then have to save the document in doc format to avoid file conversion in future.

I eventually found a quick and simple fix to my problem which seems to have worked and which other people may find of benefit.

1. Uninstall Word and Outlook 2003 only by choosing the 'change' option from the 'uninstall or change program' in control panel. Office setup asks you what programs you want to uninstall. It leaves the rest of Office 2003 untouched
2. Install Office 2010
3. Start Word 2010 and let it go through initial set up [it didn’t work first time when I didn’t start Word 2010 before the next step, so clearly the first time you run Word, it does something to the registry or to another part of the system]
4. Re-install Word and Outlook 2003, again by running 'change' from 'uninstall or change program'. This reinstalled the programs from the cabinet files on my pc without the need for the original CD
5. Start Outlook and when the program reports that MAPI32.DLL is the wrong version, rename MSMAPI32.dll to MSMAPI32.OLD [as per the suggestion on Microsoft's support website for this error message]
6. Start Outlook again

I just had one other problem to overcome. When I installed Office 2010 Home and Student edition, setup installed trial versions of Outlook, Access and Publisher without my knowledge - a typical Microsoft trick. When Windows Update next ran, I didn't check the details of the offered updates. One update installed a new version of the Outlook 2010 junk email filter which caused the original error message in Outlook 2003 to reappear [i.e. program incompatibility]. I therefore had to remove Office 2010 to get rid of that update.

[RussB]

I feel your pain, but realistically, from 2003 to 2010, SEVEN years, can one really expect them to be compatible and play nicely together?

[JoeP517]

When installing multiple versions of Office the best practice has always been to install from the oldest version to the newest. That has always seemed to cause the least amount of trouble.

Joe

[Edith-ann]

Monday Aug 16, 2010: I'm having similar problems to those of Akinbiyi. I've been running Word as my editor in Outlook since Outlook98 (I think it was called 98). Converted to Office 2003. Now ready to convert to Office 2010. Have the Home & Student 2010. Plan to get Outlook 2010 (loved RussB's comment about "play nicely together"). Neglected to get the Trial of Outlook 2010 when I installed Office 2010. Bad move! Now I cannot use Outlook 2003. Cannot "rename mapi32.dll" to mapi32.old - not with WordPad or Word or Notepad - apparently it doesn't want to do things in DOS. I don't know how to re-install Outlook2003 -- will I have to delete my Office2003 and then try to re-install it in order to get Outlook2003 back in action? Edith-ann
Tuesday Aug 17, 2010: I hope that no-one but me spent time on this problem. Today I gave up in disgust. I uninstalled Office 2010 for Home & Student and then re-installed it, with its free one month trial of the other goodies. I'll probably buy Outlook 2010. I kept thinking of RussB's comment about "play nicely together". This is all going on inside my Window 7 desktop. I shall probably retain my Office2003 on my Windows XP laptop - to keep up my skills for using Office2003. In a pinch, I can go into 2003 and refresh my memory of the keystrokes, like that useful Shift+F3 for caps.

[JimJohnson]

First my setup is using Win7 Pro with Office 2010 (Pro version) running on Win7 and my older Office 2003 running in XP Mode.

I do this because 'compatible' is not the same as 'native'. Particularly in Excel, if you edit a file created in Office 2003 (.xls) with Office 2007 or 2010 then save the file in .xls format, you will often get a warning about potential loss of some features - - - what the warning doesn't tell you is that Office 2007/2010 will substitute some VBA code to attempt to retain features. This can happen with actions as simple as formatting cells with a different color text. I have then run into a couple very sensitive email systems that will refuse to pass these files because of the embedded VBA code. I then have no choice but to use Excel 2003 to make my edits. I too run into issues mixing older and newer versions of apps on the same system. XP Mode sidesteps this issue.

As for the Outlook issue specifically... I love Outlook 2010 with a caveat and a work around. Other than the comfortable and highly customizable Toolbars and a couple little used add-ins that depend on Toolbars, I've lost nothing going from Outlook 2003 to Outlook 2010 and gained much. [I'm not going to duplicate the many reviews out there].

What I did was use the Outlook 2010 Quick Access Toolbars to mostly duplicate my primary Outlook 2003 Toolbars, then minimized the Ribbon. The Ribbon is still readily available for those times I need it - which isn't often.

And by the way, a technique is circulating for adding Word 2003 toolbars to the Word 2007/2010 Ribbon ... no this is not a VBA add-on. It requires using Word 2003 to build a custom toolbar, saving the blank document as a template, then moving the template into Word 2007/2010's startup folder. Word 2007/2010 automatically creates a new Ribbon segment with your Word 2003 icons. It doesn't work for every Word 2003 menu option, but it does work for most of them. I create a number of fill-in-the-blank forms in Word, and Word 2003's tools are superior for this type of document. And I use Word 2003's tools in Word 2010. It's the best of both worlds. ...and for something really odd-ball, well that's why I am using XP Mode and Office 2003.

[petesmst]

Three Points:
1. the UBIT menu can be installed as an add-in for Office 2007 and 2010. This enables you to use Word and Excel with 2003 menus. Great while you are learning to use the new "ribbon" interface. It is available for free here: http://www.ubit.ch/software/ubitmenu-languages

2. Shift-F3 and most other word short-cut keys work the same in Word 2010.

3. You could also consider installing Windows XP mode (with windows Virtual Machine). That way you get to run your "XP programs" independently of your "Windows 7 programs". (see elsewhere in the Lounge for many threads about this).

(Edit: To correct typos)