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Office 2003 Service Pack Disables Older File Formats
time961 writes "In Service Pack 3 for Office 2003, Microsoft disabled support for many older file formats. If you have old Word, Excel, 1-2-3, Quattro, or Corel Draw documents, watch out! They did this because the old formats are 'less secure', which actually makes some sense, but only if you got the files from some untrustworthy source. Naturally, they did this by default, and then documented a mind-bogglingly complex workaround (KB 938810) rather than providing a user interface for adjusting it, or even a set of awkward 'Do you really want to do this?' dialog boxes to click through. And of course because these are, after all, old file formats ... many users will encounter the problem only months or years after the software change, while groping around in dusty and now-inaccessible archives."
maybe now the world will wakeup and ditch ms office for better alternatives
GNAA was here
OMG... Slashdot seems to be going farther and farther into inanity with the things they complain about.
I don't hear them puling about how you need to have a copy of WordPerfect 5.0 laying around if you want to read any really old WP files... because as anyone knows, the WP format is the most hostile to non-WordPerfect applications.
But hey, it wasn't made by Microsoft, so stuff like that isn't complaint-worthy. Let's just whine when MS does things everyone else does... except that they've supported their old formats far longer than is ordinary.
if only there were some sort of electronic machine that was optimised to perform repetitive tasks in rapid succession. such a whimsical device would be make this impossible task a snap. but who in the world has ever heard of such a flight of fancy..?
and you are assuming i give a shit
I love how all you Linux/Mac freaks will bitch about Microsoft evolving the way OSX does, or how Windows and its apps are so bloated, and then you pull crap like this out. The reason MS apps are so freaking bloated is that they are trying to support documents created through about 10 years of versioning. Apple does what you're complaining about here and you call it evolution, MS does it and its a travesty.