Compatibility Pack for Word, Excel, and PowerPoint 2007 File Formats

[Steven W]

Forgive me if this is a bit rambling.

In a post here:

http://www.msfn.org/board/office-2003-win98-t139056.html,

Marius '95 got Office 2003 to install, but not work on 98

I figured out a very similar technique will install the Word Viewer 2003, it also doesn't function but installs.

Today I've been playing with the Compatibility Pack. Thinking that the older Word, Excel and PowerPoint Viewers could work with the thing, it essentially converts Office 2007 files to the older formats on opens them (at least it did on my XP machine before I reinstalled OS).

I recommend having the Viewers, or perhaps Office, installed first! If you want to install Viewers, I suggest removing KernelEx first as I did (more on that later).

I downloaded the file here:

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

I then extracted its contents with 7-zip. I used Orca to modify the Launch Condition of O12Conv.msi to read:

Version9X=410

Saved the file and it installs. It give a Docx file (and all other file with Office 2007 extensions) on the desktop a pretty office icon too (I'm excited at this point). I double click the Docx file nothing happens. I remember that I have KernelEX uninstalled, so I reinstall it. Double click again, this time I get a message, "The converter failed to save the file". There is also a file that appears on the Desktop, $éc, a 0 byte file. I tried to reinstall the converter with KernelEx running, and the results are the same.

I'm thinking this is looking a bit promising. Hoping some of the Gurus here can help. I'll attach a couple of screenshots to show what I'm talking about.

Edited November 29, 2009 by Steven W

[Steven W]

Here's a shot of the change in Orca:

and here's the file that gets the pretty icon (test.docx) and the O byte file that gets created when I click the pretty icon:

I set preferences in Explorer to show all files and all extensions.

and here's the error message I get after double clicking test.docx:

[Steven W]

Okay, I'm back home now on my XP machine (my friend is running my old 98 machine) and wanted to tell you a bit more.

Before I left my friend's home, I didn't have the PowerPoint Viewer installed. When I'd click a Pptx file it would open a save as dialog and come back a little while later with the same error message (shown above). I've done some reading and you don't have to have any of the viewers or Office installed for the converter to work. I don't have any on my XP machine, and the Save as dialog comes up and you can then pick a folder, but of course it works on XP (outputs an older Office format file). I tried to install SP1 for the Compatibility Pack on the 98 machine, not realizing there was a SP2. It failed, interestingly it fails exactly the same way on XP. I bet if you have this installed per my directions that the SP2 will simply work (without modding). I can't try it now since I don't have that computer; hopefully someone else can:

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

If not I'll be on it tomorrow.

I'm attaching a screenshot from XP, first I went to Windows Update after installing the Compatibility Pack here's what came up:

Obviously we can ignore Service Pack One.

Was also trying to get Wordconv.exe to work from the commandine couldn't get it to work at friends or here on XP. Apparently there are a few other tools that will convert file from a commandline. I'm too tired to work with it tonight...but if someone is interested:

http://channel9.msdn.com/wiki/OfficeDeploy...MContributions/

scroll down to bottom of page.

Update : The Service pack 2 runs, but fails. It leaves a log file in the "C:\Windows\Temp" directory.

I can't get the command line stuff to work either. The pointer changes to an hour glass momentarily.

Edited November 30, 2009 by Steven W

[Steven W]

Oops. Wrong place.

Edited April 2, 2010 by Steven W