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."

Comments

maybe grepping

[User 956]

many users will encounter the problem only months or years after the software change, while groping around in dusty and now-inaccessible archives.

Is that how one interfaces with rarely-used document archives? via groping?

Re:maybe grepping

[fahrbot-bot]

Is that how one interfaces with rarely-used document archives? via groping?

Bender: If by "interface" you mean "have sex with" and if by "rarely-used document archive" you mean "your girlfriend", then yes, "groping" is the correct term. As follows:

Hey baby, can I interface with your rarely-used document interface?
Later, want to kill all humans?

Re:maybe grepping

[dbIII]

Is that how one interfaces with rarely-used document archives? via groping?

That's assuming they date back to the Clinton admistration. In California this approach will be required for current documents.

Re:maybe grepping

[mrjb]

> Is that how one interfaces with rarely-used document archives? via groping?
Yes, didn't you know? You should have RTFM:

GROPE

NAME

              grope, egrope, fgrope, rgrep - print lines matching a pattern
              in rarely used document archives

SYNOPSIS

              grope (options) PATTERN (FILE...)

DESCRIPTION

              grope searches the named archives FILEs (or standard input if none are
              named, or the file name - is given) for lines containing a match to the
              given PATTERN. By default, grope prints the matching lines.

              In addition, three variant programs egrope, fgrep and rgrep are avail-
              able. egrep is the same as grope -E. fgrope is the same as
              grope -F. rgrope is the same as grope -r.

BUGS

              Backreferences are very slow, and may require exponential time.

Default value goes back pretty far

[compumike]

If you read the knowledge base article, you'll see that the default allowed old-version goes back to before even Word 95. PowerPoint 95, but not 97, is blocked. It's very likely that few documents exist in such old formats at this point.

However, I really have to question whether the enhanced security is worth it, since those old versions didn't allow too much of embedded scripting anyway. Are we just worried about buffer overflows, because those are still a symptom of their parser, not the format itself.

The software nanny continues to keep us from hurting ourselves... gee, thanks. (Hmm, anyone smell a similar trend in government lately?)

--
Educational microcontroller kits for the digital generation.

Re:Default value goes back pretty far

[LuckyLuke58]

Doubt it's really about security at all; I'm guessing it's probably more about 'nudging' the few people still using old versions of the software to upgrade: Those who currently exchange documents with users on newer versions will find suddenly they won't be able to send documents to anyone anymore without getting complaints that people can't open them. Deliberately making it too cumbersome and complex for most people to ever work around this, i.e. leaving it technically (but not really practically for almost everyone) an option, for now at least gives MS an excuse, while still taking a big step towards getting rid of support for those old formats entirely, which is not all that unreasonable I suppose for formats greater than 10 years old.

Re:Default value goes back pretty far

[Anonymous Coward]

PowerPoint 95, but not 97, is blocked. It's very likely that few documents exist in such old formats at this point.

When I worked in government, I found that people argued (with a lot of money at stake) over the wording of property ownership documents over a hundred years old. Whenever I hear people say something like this, I hope they're not in charge of anything lasting.

Of course, I wish our nation's military was not run on Powerpoint, but the reality is that much of our military activity (by far the largest department in government) is only documented in Powerpoint.

Re:Default value goes back pretty far

[deniable]

That already happened with Word '97. Big companies changed and everyone else had to follow. Microsoft caught a lot of heat and stopped making major format changes on every version. This patch blocks stuff from before '97, so I don't think there are too many people swapping documents around that will be affected. It will screw people who are digging out old copies of documents though.

Given that they are trying to push new formats with 2007, I can see the upgrade treadmill being driven from there. docx, anyone?

Re:Default value goes back pretty far

[RickRussellTX]

It's very likely that few documents exist in such old formats at this point.

I can only speculate that you've not worked in any institutions that have persisted for more than 10 years?

I used to run a university help desk; by the time I left in late 2006 we were still getting requests to convert 5.25" floppies and DOS Wordperfect 4 documents.

The situation is complicated by many other issues:

• There is no easy way to identify the files that need conversion. Microsoft gives you no tool or flag to quickly identify old files, which share the same filename conventions as current files. Except of course to open them in Office 2K3SP3 and watch them fail :-(
• Although bulk conversion tools exist, they cost money and they won't reach files that are secured in such a way that IT support staff can't get at them (e.g., on a CD-ROM in a locked filing cabinet).
• Because a ridiculously complicated registry hack is required to enable the converters for the old documents, there's no easy way to apply it, for example as an Active Directory group policy. We're left with error-prone methods like push tools & login scripts.

Ultimately, there is nothing wrong with the "file formats". A file format is not insecure. The issue is that Microsoft is shipping insecure code in Office 2007 and 2003 which may break when these files are opened and allow malicious executable code to run in the user's security context. Rather than fix this insecure code in a shipping product, their policy is to turn off the code and tell the user, "if you want to take the risk, turn it back on, but we won't make it easy."

I work at an organization that has been grappling with this problem since SP3 came out in September 2007. We routinely work on projects that span 15 years, so it's not at all unusual to open project documentation that is 10+ years old. Companies were loyal to MS Office precisely because it promised reasonably complete forward compatibility with archived documents. Microsoft needs to provide a more robust solution to this problem, preferably by fixing the broken code (gasp!) or (less preferably) giving system administrators the tools necessary to enable and disable the functionality in a more global way.

Re:Default value goes back pretty far

[dokebi]

It's very likely that few documents exist in such old formats at this point.

Really? How about the US government? NASA anyone?

Why should anyone stop supporting old document formats? Are the files created a long ago no longer important? How about 100 year old books? Should we burn them all?

We should stop this file format insanity now, and adopt some open format. Like ODF. Good riddance.

Re:Default value goes back pretty far

[Helldesk Hound]

> Deliberately making it too cumbersome and complex for most people to ever
> work around this, i.e. leaving it technically (but not really practically
> for almost everyone) an option, for now at least gives MS an excuse, while
> still taking a big step towards getting rid of support for those old formats
> entirely, which is not all that unreasonable I suppose for formats greater
> than 10 years old.

Let's not forget - what is being supported is *software*, ie M$ Office, not a file format.

The current iteration of Micro$oft Office should be capable of opening any and all files created by any prior release of M$ Office, and should be capable of doing so in a safe and secure manner.

If the current iteration of Micro$oft Office is incapable of safely and securely parsing any file created by any prior iteration of M$ Office then surely something is very wrong with Microsoft, and with M$ Office!!

Re:Default value goes back pretty far

[that this is not und]

Me, I'm just hoping nothing important is stored in PowerPoint documents.

But I do know a guy (now retired) who wrote reports with photographs in them by dragging in big unresized jpegs and tiffs to PowerPoint slides, then dragging the Powerpoint slides into Word documents. Thankfully after he retired I have mostly turned all those monsters (why should a 27 page report be 45MB???) into PDF files so the point in my case is moot.

I truly do hope that ownership documents that need to survive over 100 years are not stored in any format that Microsoft touches.

Re:Default value goes back pretty far

[syousef]

It is unreasonable, and stupid to boot.

Unreasonable:
Most students, business and personal users don't wish to be unable to open their 10 year old document because it's no longer supported. Students want to be able to access old study notes, businesses want to get at statistics, company history and old documentation of systems or business practices, and the end user wants to be able to open that wedding speech they wrote 10 years ago, or that collection of jokes in an MS word doc.

Stupid:
Why do people buy Office instead of using something free? For the 3000 features? No, at least most don't. They buy Office for universal compatibility s that they can exchange documents with everyone. The moment users start complaining that they can't open the MS Office document with Office, but it's okay you can use a free alternative, people will start installing the free alternative. They're not forcing anyone to move up to a later maintained version, they're forcing people away to software that actually does the job they want it to.

Only fools and company sock puppets (sales and marketing) actually believe obsolescence is reasonable, particularly when it comes to data.

Re:Default value goes back pretty far

[harlows_monkeys]

Most students, business and personal users don't wish to be unable to open their 10 year old document because it's no longer supported. Students want to be able to access old study notes

If a student has been held back that long, the old notes are probably not going to help!

Re:Default value goes back pretty far

[dbIII]

Word 95. PowerPoint 95, but not 97, is blocked. It's very likely that few documents exist in such old formats at this point.

I occasionally load in data tapes from as far back as 1982. Reports related to the data will be in whatever file format is popular at the time, which will be MS Word and MS Excel from the early 1990s on. Since computing power is so cheap now a lot of stuff in a lot of feilds gets reprocessed, old data is a lot more useful than repeating 10 years worth of experiments again or sending 50 guys out to survey an area for two months or even trying to examine something that doesn't exist anymore. Old file formats like TIFF, SEGD, tar and so on are deliberately backwards compatible so that archiving is more than just an expensive hobby. Since Microsoft have moved out of the hobby software space and into the office they should realise that they have to take a professional approach throughout the company to avoid mistakes like this.

Re:Default value goes back pretty far

[ta bu shi da yu]

Ultimately, there is nothing wrong with the "file formats". A file format is not insecure. The issue is that Microsoft is shipping insecure code in Office 2007 and 2003 which may break when these files are opened and allow malicious executable code to run in the user's security context. Rather than fix this insecure code in a shipping product, their policy is to turn off the code and tell the user, "if you want to take the risk, turn it back on, but we won't make it easy."

Thank you!!! Sanest comment I've seen in a long time.

Re:Default value goes back pretty far

[mysticgoat]

It's very likely that few documents exist in such old formats at this point.

Tee-hee! That got laughs from all kinds of government employees, university administrative assistants, paralegals, and so on.

And this undoubtedly will put a smile on the faces of all the good old boys at Exxon, who have been fighting the good fight to keep from actually having to pay for the damage that their Valdez supertanker did about 20 years ago. If all the prosecutor briefs from before 1995 were suddenly much more difficult to access, then maybe Exxon will succeed in avoiding payment of the $2.5 billion they owe.

Proprietary file formats are definitely good for some businesses.

Re:Default value goes back pretty far

[digitrev]

Playing devil's advocate here, but there are a lot of career students. Some might even need to take a look at their first year notes on eigenvectors because they need to deal with it in the last year of their Ph.D, and they remember really liking the prof that year.

Just because you don't see a reason for it, doesn't mean there isn't one.

Re:Default value goes back pretty far

[Heir Of The Mess]

Reminds me of this story:

With nearly half a century of experience using computers to run their business, Chris M's company knew that law all too well. Ever since that fateful Wednesday -- still known throughout the company as The Crash of '68 -- they swore, Never Again. And forty years later, they've kept their promise.

Over the years, Chris's employer has come as close to a Perfect Technology Infrastructure as anyone. They hire the best network administrators money can buy and give them whatever resources they need to ensure that the infrastructure remains solid. And that they do.

The company's backup and retention plan is nothing short of immaculate. Every system they've ever purchased -- from that old payroll program on the System/360 to that bizarre parts database for OS/2 -- can be brought back to life, if not physically than through virtualization. A walk through their "software archive" was a treat for many; new technicians are often astonished to learn, not only of the existence of 8-inch floppy disks, but that the company still has the 8-inch install disks for CP/M. And a drive to run them on.

Naturally, thanks to the aforementioned Murphy's Law, this elaborate backup and retention is rarely, if ever, called into use. The only excitement the network technicians ever get is that occasional, frantic, "Oh Crap! I accidentally deleted that critical PowerPoint presentation" call. And even that is easily solved by walking the user through their self-service file restoration system.

But a little while back, the network technicians received a restoration request that actually sounded interesting. A production manager needed a report of the "old old" part numbers for a long out-of-production assembly. "Old old" referred an ancient mainframe system that had been replaced by the "old" system over ten years go and finally shut down in 2001. Restoring the "old old" system meant setting up a new emulation environment, mounting the old disk image, and praying that it boots up without a hitch.

This was the first time ever that an actual user had requested such a restoration, so the network technicians were naturally a bit nervous. But thanks to their meticulous planning and procedures, everything went fine. The system booted up without a hitch and the production manager was summoned to log in to the terminal they had set up for him. He sat down at the chair, keyed in his username, and then paused for a moment.

"Now, what was my password five years ago?"

Re:Default value goes back pretty far

[arivanov]

This is not really applicable here:

1. I bet that some of the code is not Microsoft's. They have bought it and I would not be so sure about the right to modify it in the first place. In any case we are back to rewriting code which noone understands any more.
2. You can sandbox in a sandbox-friendly language (not the case here it is all C++ or C at that age) or if your code is written in a manner where sandboxing works. Classic example - using exemptions on out-of-memory or invalid pointers to allocate memory. I know a chap who writes everything like this and he used to work for MSFT at just about that time. Wanna sandbox that? Especially in a multithreaded environment? I doubt it. On top of that I can bet that the internals of the code in question reinvent the wheel left right and center and reimplement functions that are nowdays part of the foundation classes. As a result the size of the piece of code which you have to sandbox suddenly grows on an order of magnitude. And so on.
As I said, I for once can sympathise with a MSFT decision. I have no sympathy to the fact that they do not admit to the underlying reason which is using formats that are not open, well defined and standardised (nothing to do with security), but that is a different story.

Re:Default value goes back pretty far

[plaxion]

My thoughts exactly. But at least we can look on the bright side... we can still open these formats in Open Office. Which, if you think about it, means that MS is actually pushing users who have older stuff into using OOo. And for at least some of them, the first time they use OOo might also be the last time they use MS Office because they'll realize that they don't need to be paying Microsoft a big chunk of money for programs that don't always do what they want and that they can get a suite of programs that does what they want for free.

Re:Default value goes back pretty far

[Anonymous Coward]

Helldesk_Hound, your account appears to have been taken over by a 7 year old. Maybe if you get in touch with slashdot they'll reset your password so you can get it back?

Re:Default value goes back pretty far

[syousef]

This need to be noted: from my experience people do not buy msOffice - they either get it in 'free' packets together with their hw or they have the choice made for them by mighty admins (or whoever that is that makes decision about purchase of this or that software for big organisations).

I've seen people buy Office. I've also certainly been aware of large companies buying it. How do you think MS make money from it if it's not bought? If they didn't care about the home market there wouldn't be home specific versions.

Fortunately there are alternatives one can use if ms products fail - the results may not be ideal but better than nothing. I do not understand why all this fuss about such policy then.

Perhaps because some people have a life and have better things to do with it than waste it finding other software that aren't ideal to get around their software supplier crippling their software. Why should anyone waste time and/or money downloading a free office alternative, or applying registry hacks just to open a document they created 5 years ago. Way to demonstrate loyalty to the customer.

Re:Default value goes back pretty far

[marcello_dl]

> If you read the knowledge base article, you'll see that the default allowed old-version goes back to before even Word 95. PowerPoint 95, but not 97, is blocked. It's very likely that few documents exist in such old formats at this point.

I do not agree, but that's irrelevant.

What's relevant is that instead of the obvious choice (open a dialog box like "This document is in an old format which poses security risks if coming from an untrusted source. Open anyway? (yes) (no) (always) (never)") the guys at MS decide what you can or can't access with your new PC.

Re:Default value goes back pretty far

[bytesex]

I'm sure if the guys from antiword, catdoc, abiword and openoffice can (re)write an interpreter, then so can some guys at microsoft. The older formats are so featureless, that you should be able to write a renderer (at least) using perl or visual basic or something.

Re:Default value goes back pretty far

[Angostura]

Originally from http://thedailywtf.com/

Re:Default value goes back pretty far

[howlingmadhowie]

so basically: "you, the customer, have to buy a new version of our software every x years because we're going to change our software to make it necessary". i wonder what would happen if one company had a monopoly on cars and tank stations? would they regularly change tank station nozzles so as to force people to replace perfectly good cars?

Re:Default value goes back pretty far

[Graff]

If you read the knowledge base article, you'll see that the default allowed old-version goes back to before even Word 95. PowerPoint 95, but not 97, is blocked. It's very likely that few documents exist in such old formats at this point. Intrestingly enough, it looks like this update blocks ALL versions of files saved by Word for the Mac. It even blocks the most current version of Word for the Mac, Word 2004 for Mac.

Hmm, can anyone say anti-competitive abuse of a monopoly? Yes, I know there are some alternatives to Word but I've had nothing but odd problems when I use Open Office or Apple's Pages. In the business world you are pretty much required to send people Word documents, even if you are sending them a resume. If you don't use Word you are playing russian roulette with your file, maybe it will work, maybe there will be some odd issue like the page headers not printing properly.

I really wish we could all get on the same page and come up with a good, highly accepted, replacement format to Microsoft Word and Excel. I know that alternative formats are being worked on but they all look like they have a snowball's chance in hell at getting accepted over the Word document format.

Re:Default value goes back pretty far

[mattpalmer1086]

There is a tool called DROID (Digital Record Object Identification) that will scan a bunch of files and identify the file formats (including the version, not just the mime type).

It is developed by the Digital Preservation department at the UK National Archives, licensed under a BSD license, and is available from source forge:

http://droid.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/Introduction

Re:Default value goes back pretty far

[MMC Monster]

Agree, but there is another point:

A lot of individuals have pointed to MSOffice as a standard, stating that future versions will always be able to read the older formats. Now there is absolute proof that it isn't true.

Another reason for an open format that is actively supported by multiple vendors.

Re:Default value goes back pretty far

[arivanov]

I am saying that the documentation most likely does not fit the implementation. It is a classic result when only one implementation of a format exists. The bugs in the format become a feature of the format.

So while a documentation most certainly exist I can bet a case of beer that there is no way in hell to produce a working implementation without looking at the existing code or even reverse engineering it.

Further to this, even in cases where docs exists noone has even bothered to analyse the formats from a security perspective. WMF is a classic example. A format that allows you to execute stuff as a part of the definition and noone noticed this for many years until the shit hit the fan. I bet that there are gems like that in many of the other "prehistoric" format specs.

Re:Default value goes back pretty far

[swillden]

Classic example - using exemptions on out-of-memory or invalid pointers to allocate memory. I know a chap who writes everything like this and he used to work for MSFT at just about that time. Wanna sandbox that?

Nope. Don't sandbox, virtualize. Create a tiny VM that has only the minimal OS needed to run the core of the code, and run the unsafe code in there. The tiny OS doesn't need to have any device support, just a bit of memory management plus a set of APIs that pass through to the real OS outside, with parameter validation.

MS has all of the technology needed to do this. If they don't want to make a truly minimal OS, they could always just use Windows Mobile, with all of the optional components removed. It wouldn't be trivial, but neither would it be a huge chunk of work.

It would probably cost them fewer dollars to implement a virtualized "sandbox" for that old code than it will to handle the support calls their move is going to create. OTOH, the virtualization approach would only help with security, it wouldn't encourage people to upgrade.

Re:Default value goes back pretty far

[novakyu]

Even a career student shouldn't still be doing their PhD 12 years after they started their undergrad. Are you sure about that?

Most people already finish their PhD *at least* 9 years after they start undergrad (that's assuming 4 years of undergrad and 5 years of graduate school, which is actually lower than average). And suppose someone graduated from college, spent a few years (2 to 3, maybe?) in the industry, and then decided to go back and earn a PhD (I suppose there are a number of reasons for this, ranging from the PhD being necessary to advancement in career to becoming disinterested in making money and (re-)entering academia). That's easily 12 years, and I didn't have to concoct any unusual scenario like someone waking out of coma after 10 years.

As for what kind of information one would be looking for ... well, how about the syllabus? The information in that, like which textbook is used in the course and what will be covered, is not available in any commonly-sold textbook. Of course, this doesn't fit with the PhD thesis scenario, but if you just imagine someone staying out of school just a little longer (oh ... 5 to 8 years) and then applying to grad school, you can see how this will be a problem: some grad school applications ask for textbook used in the course (to gauge the level and breadth of the course), and ... guess what, that information is locked away in a "deprecated" file format.

Re:Default value goes back pretty far

[syousef]

Or just kill a few trees and make hard copies. Those tend to never go "obsolete" and can be re-created in any of the current formats.

Printing takes time and money. Storing printed text costs space (money). Re-entering data takes time and money.

You shouldn't have to go through this kind of SHIT to open a fucking word processor document a few years after you create it.

Not really that bad

[ZeroPly]

I don't know if I'd characterize it as "mind-bogglingly complex". It's a series of registry edits. There will probably be appropriate .REG files released by various parties in the next few days, and if you're paranoid, it should take about 15 minutes to roll your own. As for users in non-managed environments, I don't know how many home users really try to access files that are over a decade old.

Re:Not really that bad

[deniable]

There's already an ADM file for group policy in the linked KB article. If you're using group policy, it's a five minute job for the whole domain.

Re:Not really that bad

[howlingmadhowie]

don't use rtf. there are hundreds of different rtf extensions and no one knows which ones will be supported by microsoft in the future. if you want to store information for the foreseeable future you can use a standard ascii-text or utf8-text, tex, html or odt and that's about it.

Re:Not really that bad

[The Anarchist Avenge]

Which means these people have access to someone who has the knowledge to change the default values. They have access to a 19-year-old relative. Or they did, until I swore off supporting Microsoft software forever because of Vista. The point was that they were using more up to date operating systems with older files... but looking back at the thread, I realize that I totally messed up when I tried to explain that, so my apologies. What I was *trying* to say was that there are lots of files stored in legacy formats, and it's a really dumb idea to suddenly stop supporting them without any warning.

I find it more amazing people are using buggy 10 year old software. It was never that great to begin with with XP being a vast improvement! No argument with you there man.

Just Disabled, Not Removed

[tajmorton]

According to TFA, you still can open and save the files (Word 95 and older, and other ancient formats), you need to edit the registry to enable the formats.

A chance for alternatives

[cygtoad]

The minute a user tries to open these retired formats and cannot is the minute they start looking for another solution to open their files. This will help the install base of a lot of alternatives, which may have some staying power once installed. Programs like Abiword, OO.org and Gnumeric are all waiting in the wings.

Re:A chance for alternatives

[ta bu shi da yu]

At the risk of being scored -1 redundant, you are wrong.

"After you install Office 2003 SP3, some Microsoft Office Excel 2003, Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2003, Microsoft Office Word 2003, and Corel Draw (.cdr) file formats are blocked. By default, these file formats are blocked because they are less secure. They may pose a risk to you."

Well

[Alexx K]

If you have documents that old, and they don't need to be edited in the future, you should probably convert them to PDF.

If they may need to be edited in the future, perhaps LaTeX or ODF would be good choices.

Re:Well

[flyingfsck]

"you should probably convert them to PDF." Hmm, go tell that to a lawyer with 50,000 old files of which half are older than 20 years, nevermind 10...

Re:Well

[ToBeContinued]

You are assuming that conversions between file formats happens 100% accurately.

Revenge

[The Clockwork Troll]

I am the maintainer of Visicalc. This means war.

Think Visicalc 26 service pack 3 is going to import Multiplan files?

Think again, bitches.

Re:Revenge

[locokamil]

Wow. Just wow.

I had to look up both Visicalc and Multiplan... apparently both were released before I was born.

Re:Revenge

[lysse]

Well, at least the world is now safe from the arbitrary execution of 6502 machine code.

Easy fix

[DaveAtFraud]

An easy work-around is to just install Open Office and then open the obsolete files using the appropriate Open Office program (Writer for Word documents, Calc for Excel spreadsheets, etc.). The user can then do a "save as" and select a newer Microsoft file format. Voila. Problem solved.

Microsoft probably won't like this work-around since a certain percentage of users may realize that they don't need to pay Microsoft for programs that don't do what they want and they can get a suite of programs that does what they want for free. Realizing this, Microsoft may decide to come up with a better internal solution but don't count on it.

Cheers,
Dave

Re:Easy fix

[DaveAtFraud]

I haven't had too much trouble. I've been running Linux and Open Office exclusively for several years and, at worst, I see some minor formatting issues when I open a file created with "the real thing" Microsoft product. Likewise, I sometimes see similar minor formatting issues when I save a file from OO in a Microsoft file format.

It wouldn't surprise me if some more complicated documents or say an Excel spreadsheet with macros had problems but OO has gotten pretty good at opening and saving Microsoft file formats. This is especially true for older file formats. The longer the file format is in use, the longer OO developers have had to debug their reverse engineering of the format.

Also, if someone hasn't opened a file for "a while" chances are they just need to see it; not update it (e.g., What was the actual sales forecast for Q3 2002? What price was quoted back when? That sort of thing). At worst there would be other options like cut and paste, save as text, save as comma delimited, etc. I'd hate to see a bunch of people having to make registry changes.

Cheers,
Dave

Conflicting Strategies?

[TaoPhoenix]

Wasn't "bakward compatibility" the whole crusade they were on last year? "We must preserve support for old formats, which is why we won't make IE standards compliant, and our spec has to back-support IndentsLikeWord95" and the rest?

Their sneaky brand of evil is saying two conflicting things and making us believe they work together.

this may not be such a bad thing

[macurmudgeon]

I wonder if this is the start of Microsoft finally unburdening themselves from all that awful legacy code that's been such an albatross and has contributed to such bloated apps and OS?

Re:hmmm

[statemachine]

with MS your files are accessible for however long they decide they should be, with FOSS, they're accessible as long as anyone is alive capable of re-compiling the source.

This is the point that people miss. All of the documents that were archived in the older formats will no longer be openable -- in this case, there is an arcane incantation as a workaround, but what if MSFT removes support entirely so that an authoritative document conversion is no longer possible? With open source, the method is obtainable. With closed source, it may be deleted when the company no longer supports it or closes its doors.

There are many cities/states/countries that rely on MSFT formats for document archival. Should a city keep spending money every 5-10 years to also update the formats on all of these records in case the necessary closed-source software ceases to exist or work on modern computers?

Is this actually a new thing?

[jesterzog]

Is this definitely just coming with SP3, or has it been around for longer? I hit this issue, or a very similar one, in our organisation several months ago. A user had some old Word 2.0 documents stored on a network drive (from the mid 1990's, before we enforced the use of a DMS), and they wouldn't open in Word 2003. The error dialog that Word displayed only mentioned the registry policy settings (without specifically saying the version was old), and I eventually found a knowledge base article that described the registry hack.

long careers exclude using proprietary formats

[spasm]

Funnily enough, the thing that finally, permanently, won me over to open document formats (I first used things like openoffice simply because they were free) was discovering I couldn't open my dissertation (written in word 5.1a for mac) on a standard install of office for windows. Yes, I know there's converters, and yes, I know current versions of word for mac can still open 5.1a documents, but I didn't have a mac at the time, and laboriously 'converting' the large numbers of transcripts, notes, papers, and all the other ephemera of writing a dissertation was a huge, timewasting PITA..

After that, the penny dropped. Using open document formats wasn't simply a way to save money, it was an actual necessity for anyone planning to have a career lasting more than 5 years where writing is a core part of your work.

This is why you need to support ODF instead

[velen]

Any government organization or large corporate that has a necessity to retain records has to convert their archives to a newer version. Who is paying for the conversion? Also, Office 95 is 13 years old. If someone upgraded to Office 95 by 97 (for service pack / stability etc) it is 10 years old. Given the investment in the software, if you assume someone used it and upgraded directly to office 2003, then the documents that are affected are less than 5 years old...

Sure there is a right answer --

[Joseph_Daniel_Zukige]

Bill Gates has how many billions of dollars?

(Can he fire the Ballmer?)

Gates could afford to build a special fork of one of the Linux or BSD distros. (Linux would require less work, but he may find the BSD licensing more palatable, as we know.) He could afford to develop several sandboxed WINE environments capable of emulating the clot of software relevant to each OS release from 3 to whatever level of support he is dropping. He could afford to put into the packages for this special fork open source converters that would convert old documents to whatever is current at Microsoft (since he is not likely to be willing to convert to the more logical option). And, as a bonus, he could even provide software to check the sandbox for damage and report and repair it. (Actually, the repairing would not really just a bonus.)

Why doesn't he do it?

Dang, and why doesn't Apple make MOL an official product? Or even MOM?

File format is less secure?

[filbranden]

They did this because the old formats are 'less secure', which actually makes some sense,

This doesn't make sense to me. A file format doesn't have buffer overflow vulnerabilities, the program that opens it has them. A file format cannot execute a virus or a trojan, the program that opens it is the one that does it. I cannot believe that a file format can have inherent vulnerabilities that cannot be circumvented by the program that reads the file.

On the other hand, considering the ODF vs. OOXML format wars, it seems to me that Microsoft's objective with this is actually to press for the standardization of OOXML. How exactly I don't understand, since the whole point of standard document formats is to avoid this same problem that they've just created.

This is exactly why proprietary formats are bad

[Skapare]

This is exactly why proprietary formats are bad, at least for documents that need to be kept for a long time for some reason, such as archival or historical documents. Even if open source office applications do similar things and depricate support for old formats, the older application versions might at least be available. Or third party developers could more easily create conversion programs. While open source programs do also exist to read these old proprietary documents today, we don't know if future proprietary document formats will be able to be supported. The open formats will be supportable.

Re:Do I understand correctly?

[ScrewMaster]

In other words, their lips moved.

Mind-bogglingly complex?

[Tim C]

I guess the submitter missed the link to an exe you can use to do it for you. I mean, it is buried in the KB article as "Method 1" after all...

Re:Mind-bogglingly complex?

[deniable]

That EXE contains ADM files / Group Policy templates. It's perfect if you're running an AD domain but is not much use for individual users. Those people can get whoever does their support now to use method 2.

'Mind bogglingly complex' indicates the submitter can't be trusted with a box of crayons.

Re:Mind-bogglingly complex?

[BasilBrush]

What you are all doing is making the mistake of assuming that the user is in a large organisation with an IT support dept that will do the work for them. Well a lot of people that use Office are not in that situation. The procedure may not be mind bogglingly complex for an IT support person, but the average person would be scared and confused from the get go with the instruction to backup the registry, never mind run ORKSP3AT.exe

And for what? The excuse that these are insecure formats is a lie. It's just data. If Office 2003 is vulnerable to exploiting old file formats, that's Office 2003 code that is insecure.

The best lesson that users can learn from this is don't ever upgrade Office.

Time for you for ODF

[aepervius]

In 25 years you will still able to use an open ISO standard or convert from one standard to another. Microsoft jsut proved to you they are unreliable for the goal you had (forward compatibility).

Re:Time for you for ODF

[Xiaran]

Yes but the legacy standard is clearly documented in the most unambiguous way the standards body and try to come up with. Even if the software is no longer widely used or exists it is much easier to go to a standards document and write new conversion software that recreate a reverse engineering solution on a format that no one left alive know the details of.

Thank you Microsoft...

[mwvdlee]

...for demonstrating why we need ODF.

Re:Thank you Microsoft...

[User 956]

Thank you Microsoft for demonstrating why we need ODF.

For ultimate data portability, I prefer MDF.

And a chisel.

Re:Thank you Microsoft...

[Marcion]

Was the Knowledge base article written by the same people who wrote the OOXML draft?

What the heck does the following mean?

> The following table contains the DWORD names and the corresponding file formats that are blocked by using the FileOpenBlock subkey:

> FilesBeforeVersion All Word files that have an nFib value that is less than the minimum nFib value as set by an administrator

Re:Thank you Microsoft...

[Peter_JS_Blue]

My same thoughts too !!

One of the strengths of MS was backward compatibility in most of their products - with the possible exception of Office (Please note the past tense).

Ultimately this is another nail in the coffin for MS for it proves that you can't use ANY MS Office file format for reliable long term storage - unless you are prepared to walk the MS Upgrade Treadmill.

With a serious credit-crunch looming, I suspect that more and more people will be having a long hard look at cheaper, reliable office alternatives.

Re:Thank you Microsoft...

[DerPflanz]

...for demonstrating why we need ODF.

How is using a different file format helping me to read older formats? This comment is not insighful, it compares apples to oranges.

Maybe you could say that it is a reason to use OpenOffice, which by default still opens the older formats. Or a reason not to upgrade to Office 2003.

Re:Thank you Microsoft...

[Xiaran]

You know. Sometimes I think they do it on purpose. Ive just gotten thru trying to figure out how to secure Server 2003 for some slightly out of the normal configuration and had to read thru a few extremely obfuscated KB articles... its like they are actively trying to make it difficult to do things properly.

Re:Thank you Microsoft...

[Sproggit]

Nope
Your missing where the parent is coming from, though I'll admit it is a bit obtuse..
Looky:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenDocument
ODF is zipped xml, neither of which is likely to get superseded / outdated / made incompatible for a while:
1) XML is human readable (Sorta, kinda, mostly)
2) ZIP (tm) is widely used by countless libs and apps, and decompression has been reverse engineered, open sourced, dissected, inspected, and neglected (Apologies to Arlo Guthry) to death.
Writing an application to open an ODF file in the future should not be a problem, unlike this article's messy scenario.....

The Sproggg

Re:Thank you Microsoft...

[JohnFluxx]

I think his point was more about that in 20 years time we will still be able to access ODF documents.

Re:Thank you Microsoft...

[g2devi]

> What if someone discovers a vulnerability in ODF and they need to release a newer version of the format?

Two point:
1) There are no vulnerable file formats, only vulnerable implementations. If the old MS format were vulnerable, then they could at minimum sandbox the thing or take the easy way out and disable specific vulnerable implementation functions (which likely aren't used by anyone) unless the user verifies them and manually enables them.
2) No matter what ISO does, the spec is out and you are free to use any program that implements the current version. Since libraries and government institutions must have the original unconverted documents of all their archives (note, a single space or comma can change the meaning of many documents including the constitution), you can be sure that some viewer will always exist for "Older" versions.

Re:Thank you Microsoft...

[cp.tar]

Ultimately this is another nail in the coffin for MS for it proves that you can't use ANY MS Office file format for reliable long term storage - unless you are prepared to walk the MS Upgrade Treadmill.

Nope.

It's even worse.

This problem only occurs if you do walk the MS Upgrade Treadmill; should you choose to remain true to the good old Office 97, all will be fine.
OK, so the problem of opening new documents someone sends you occurs in that case, but you can't have it all.

It's a damned if you do, damned if you don't type of game: either you lose old documents or you lose new ones.
The bottom line, therefore, is: you lose anyway.

Whatever you do, if you go with Microsoft, you will lose.
Best case scenario: all you lose is lots of time. However much is necessary for converting all the old documents.
Do add that to the price of Office itself.

Re:Thank you Microsoft...

[pegr]

Just an off-topic shout-out to the memory of Phil Katz, designer of the zip file format and related compression routines, now found everywhere in the industry. Phil died in 2000 as a result of alcoholism/depression.

Sidenote: He would have made a great /.'er... He hated Windows.

Katz Obit
Katz Remembrance

Re:Thank you Microsoft...

[Cecil]

It's not. Using a different file format is helping you to read current formats in 20 years, when Microsoft pulls this same stunt again.

Re:Thank you Microsoft...

[cp.tar]

What you do is you have two systems. One MSWind97 (that sounds wrong!) and the other whatever the current version is. You work on the MSWind97 system and do translations on the current system. You send the translations over a network from the current MSWind system to the working one.

What the fsck are you talking about?

How are you going to convert documents from one format to another when the old software cannot save the document in the new format, while the new software won't open a document in the old format?

Third-party applications?

I mean, sure. But then let's show people that OpenOffice.org really can open both the old and the new documents. And convert them to whichever format they like.
Incidentally, it's an office suite as well. And you paid how much for MS Office?

The problem here is that old MS systems don't recognize modern hardware. So you'll need to be running it under emulation. To control expenses, you want a free system to run you emulated system under. As time goes one you may eventually need to be running nested levels of emulation, as, e.g., modern emulators emulate hardware that MSWind95 doesn't recognize. The last time I checked there was still a work around, but I haven't tried to reinstall MSWind95 recently.

I don't know how this is pertinent to this discussion anyway, but you're only proving my point: just dump MS Office if you need MS Office compatibility.
Paradoxical as it may sound.

Re:Thank you Microsoft...

[Toonol]

But simplifying tasks can allow you to spend more time and effort on the truly difficult and profitable parts of your job. If his job was solely deciphering file formats, ODF might make it harder to rake in the bucks. But that leads back to the buggy whip manufacturing analogy.

Re:Thank you Microsoft...

[Some_Llama]

"What the heck does the following mean?"

Well it looks like the blocking of older formats is done by a registry check office does on start, the admin values would be something you could set as a group policy... pretty standard stuff.

But blocking compatibility via the registry? nothing to worry about then i suppose...

Re:Thank you Microsoft...

[MightyYar]

When Apple releases an "update" that reduces functionality, they get called on it here.

Re:Thank you Microsoft...

[Haeleth]

Ultimately this is another nail in the coffin for MS for it proves that you can't use ANY MS Office file format for reliable long term storage unless you are prepared to walk the MS Upgrade Treadmill.

Or, you know, just follow the instructions in the KB article.

But the real issue is that most of the world apparently is prepared to walk the MS Upgrade Treadmill. Most of the world appears not even to be aware that there's any alternative... look at all the people complaining about the way they think Microsoft is going to "make" them upgrade to Vista. You and I may know better, but that doesn't alter the fact that most people don't.

With a serious credit-crunch looming, I suspect that more and more people will be having a long hard look at cheaper, reliable office alternatives.

With a serious credit crunch looming, I suspect that decision-makers will continue to drink up Microsoft's TCO advertising, and continue to reject any suggestion of switching to a cheaper alternative. After all, Microsoft-funded studies have "proven" that even completely free software is more expensive than Office, haven't they? Who's going to risk the massive expense of switching to OpenOffice.org when there's a credit crunch looming?

Don't get me wrong. I hate MS Office and go to extraordinary lengths to avoid using it whenever possible. But I'm not so deluded as to imagine I'm anything but unusual in this. Yeah, maybe this is another nail in Microsoft's coffin... but there's not much point nailing up a coffin when its supposed occupant is still walking round outside, is there?

Oh, yes it is...

[TiggertheMad]

I don't know if I'd characterize it as "mind-bogglingly complex". It's a series of registry edits.

I would. The average slob (who could very well be someone who doesn't update their old files for long periods of time) using windows does not know what the registry is, let alone how to modify it. Also consider this: What is more dangerous and likely to cause serious damage, an old file format or a average user trying to fix their registry to read old files?

Re:That's why

[Actually, I do RTFA]

Software? I use pen and paper to do all the hex calculations and use a morse code key to write to the hard drive. But, I suppose if you are going to trust a machine where anyone can break into your home and change the code on it, then you deserve the lack of security that leads to.

Typical MS "Planned Obselescence"

[Zymergy]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planned_obsolescence
Examples:
-No DirectX 10.x API for WinXP or Win2k. (The nature of the API to be a higher-level Application Programming Interface, I'd forgive not developing for Win2k as it is no longer for sale, but there's NO good reason to deny the API in WinXP, other than to force clearly Planned Obsolescence)
-No IE7 for Win2k. (interestingly, Firefox still bests ALL versions of IE..)
-No Support on your year-old PC for Full Windows Vista use. (Again, why? Even Apple and Linux have pretty eye-candied desktops working on older hardware)
-No to the Sale of WinXP to OEM (non-Business) customers this month http://www.engadget.com/2007/04/12/microsoft-pulling-oem-windows-xp-next-january/.
-Etc... (insert your own here)

I know that in my present line of work, my colleagues and I write meticulous research reports for our multi-million dollar clients.
Our clients specifically require us to NOT use *any* MS Office 2007 file format; We are to utilize 'not newer than MS Office 2003 format'. (Typically Excel, Access, and Word formats are used).
Our clients have gone on to clarify, specifically, that the Office 2007 file formats are incompatible with the older MS Office versions and necessitate needless corporate updating for their thousands of internal users, (not to mention the client has decades of reports on file that get updated every 10 to 20 years, often utilizing the original editable report document).

I too will soon be installing in Open Office very soon. (Hopefully the Excel 2003 formulas and those dating back to Excel 2.0 all work properly in Open Office?)...
It appears that this "update" is not so much for security or even for ease of development (because it WAS previously WORKING in situ). It stragetically forces users of the older versions of MS Office to update to the new version (or rather adopt the new format) due to interoperability issues.

If MS Office 2003 did 'it' before and it does not do 'it' now, post-SP3... that is *Intentional*, not "For Your Protection".
-This would be akin to IE8 not opening 'older' web page formats at all because they used some older and (potentially) unsafe format of html, CSS, Scripting etc.. it deemed unsafe!

Re:Typical MS "Planned Obselescence"

[Macthorpe]

You're talking about them adding support to operating systems which are 6-7 years old. Apple just ended support for 'Classic' mode for OS9 in the new version, the changeover from which happened in March 2001. XP was only released 6 months later than that. Can you name a single open source vendor that will support you using a 7 year old version of their product? Of course you can't.

No DirectX 10.x API for WinXP or Win2k Vista uses a completely new display driver model, WDDM, which has features that are required for DirectX 10 that XDDM doesn't support (e.g. virtualized video memory).

No Support on your year-old PC for Full Windows Vista use. I don't think you know what you're talking about here. What do you mean by "doesn't support"? Full Windows Vista use can be achieved on any DirectX 9.0 capable graphics card, which is pretty much any card created since 2002. It also requires a 1GHz CPU, which have been available since the release of XP, as has the prerequisite amount of RAM.

No to the Sale of WinXP to OEM (non-Business) customers this month That's been extended to June.

Our clients have gone on to clarify, specifically, that the Office 2007 file formats are incompatible with the older MS Office versions and necessitate needless corporate updating for their thousands of internal users, Your clients are wrong. You can download a compatibility pack and readers for Office 2007 documents for Office 2003.

Given that Apple seem to end support after 6-7 years, and there's no evidence that any OSS offering will extend support that far back, why is there suddenly an outcry with Microsoft stopping support file formats which are now over a decade old?

Seems to be bloody-minded hypocrisy.

Re:Typical MS "Planned Obselescence"

[plasmacutter]

"No DirectX 10.x API for WinXP or Win2k"
Vista uses a completely new display driver model, WDDM, which has features that are required for DirectX 10 that XDDM doesn't support (e.g. virtualized video memory).

you mean WD-DRM.
the "features" required for DX10 involve numerous DRM frameworks which severely hinder system stability, including hardware based DRM and the requirement for video hardware to be "pre-approved"(TM) by hollywood.

This is the real reason why they refuse to put DX10 on XP. It would be trivial to make a sizeable patch to implement the required graphics frameworks and APIs, but XP logo testing doesn't require this pre-approved DRM hardware, and they cant have DX10 running on "non-secure" hardware, otherwise baby hollywood may not give HD media center dominance to microsoft (as if that's going to happen).

Re:Typical MS "Planned Obselescence"

[Sir Holo]

Our clients have gone on to clarify, specifically, that the Office 2007 file formats are incompatible with the older MS Office versions and necessitate needless corporate updating for their thousands of internal users,

Your clients are wrong. You can download a compatibility pack and readers for Office 2007 documents for Office

Do you really think that you are going to tell a multi-million-dollar customer, "Do it our way, or you can take your millions of dollars of business elsewhere?"

The customer is always right.

Re:Typical MS "Planned Obselescence"

[Vellmont]

Given that Apple seem to end support after 6-7 years, and there's no evidence that any OSS offering will extend support that far back, why is there suddenly an outcry with Microsoft stopping support file formats which are now over a decade old?

A whole decade eh?

I'm not sure what file format OSS and Apple have dropped that are older than 1997. But just off the top of my head I'd guess that plain old ascii format with CR/LF is 25 years old at least. GIF is more than 20 years old. There's plenty of OSS, closed source software, even Microsoft software that supports these formats.

Your excuse that these formats are "over a decade old" is pretty lame. Do you really think people don't have old files they want to read 5-10 years later?

Re:Typical MS "Planned Obselescence"

[Nevyn]

Can you name a single open source vendor that will support you using a 7 year old version of their product? Of course you can't.

See the RHEL support policy, everything gets a 7 year support policy by default. IIRC RHEL-2.1 has at least a couple of years extension from that too.

Not really

[TiggertheMad]

Their sneaky brand of evil is saying two conflicting things and making us believe they work together.

Ok, I love to MS bash as much as the next guy, but I cannot fault them for what you are mentioning. The thing that a lot of MS haters forget is that it is a HUGE company, and the right hand often really doesnt know what the left hand is doing, and often seperate teams have their own agendas.

Modern MS is like the government: There might be a few people that are trying to pull shit, but for the most part it is just a big, slow, beauracracy.

Mod parent up!

[foreverdisillusioned]

He's right... their excuse is a joke. It can't be that hard--especially considering the huge profit margin on Office--to figure out a way of opening these file formats securely. It's not even executable data, for pete's sake! And if they *are* talking about macros or something, well then just disable the macro part until you figure out a way to sandbox it.

The richest tech company in the world is throwing its hands up in the air and saying that can't figure out how to make its most profitable (and presumably most actively developed) products render a human readable, non-executable data format safely--PLEASE. This is nothing more than a very clumsy (but brazen) attempt to make people upgrade. I'm surprised they have the balls to do it, what with their current OOXML circus.

Re:Mod parent up!

[Helldesk Hound]

> This is nothing more than a very clumsy (but brazen) attempt to
> make people upgrade. I'm surprised they have the balls to do
> it, what with their current OOXML circus.

I'm not surprised at all. :o)

It is what one expects from a company that does not respect the people who have used its software (and re-purchased it several times) over many years.

Would Adobe even consider doing this with Photoshop? No.

What we are seeing is nothing more than a "vendor lock-in" ploy.

I'm almost certain that M$ will not fully support OOXML if it gets approved by the ISO. Lets be realistic - M$ Doesn't actually support it now!

Re:Mod parent up!

[totally bogus dude]

It is what one expects from a company that does not respect the people who have used its software (and re-purchased it several times) over many years.

Sounds reasonable to me. I mean, do you respect stupid people, even if they give you their money?

Re:Mod parent up!

[bhtooefr]

Unless it's buffer overflows...

But, the first macro viruses were on Word 6.0, which is allowed!

Re:Mod parent up!

[blincoln]

It's not even executable data, for pete's sake!

A lot of older Office file formats (and MS file formats in general, at least in my experience) are basically partial memory dumps. So yes, I can imagine it would be pretty hard to even come close to guaranteeing that opening all of the decrepit old files stored in those formats would be safe.

Re:Uh, you do know it's XML, right?

[statemachine]

Umm, you do know it's XML, right?
Apparently, you don't know what XML is. You can encapsulate ANYTHING with XML. It's just a bunch of tags that have no meaning until you describe what the tags encapsulate. And then there are binary blobs, which don't mean jack because they don't get described as anything else besides a binary blob.

I did a little bit of Googling just so I don't put my foot in my mouth too firmly here.

It is a fact that binary blobs are allowed in OOXML as well as ODF. The MS/OOXML rabid fan site ooxmlhoaxes even stipulates this. No argument there.

BUT, in the article GNOME/OOXML podcast shows two sides closer than appears, these binary blobs that MSFT have are NOT specified in a publicly accessible document (if they ever were documented). While the thrust of the article was about software politics and the podcast itself, it did have a few nuggets for our conversation.

The discussion came about as a result of GNOME's support for the efforts of Jody Goldberg, the lead developer of the Gnumeric spreadsheet, to use the ECMA process to force Microsoft to reveal more about OOXML and, by extension, its previous binary formats.

According to Waugh, GNOME's involvement is limited entirely to support for Goldberg, "to ensure that Microsoft provide as much documentation as possible to make it easy for him to implement OOXML in Gnumeric specifically. And if he did not continue his participation, he would not be able to hold [Microsoft's] feet to the fire and make sure they came through on the various bits and pieces of documentation" needed for the OOXML standard. The advantage of supporting Goldberg's efforts, Waugh said, is that it helps free software support not only OOXML, but Microsoft's previous binary formats as well.

Now, if MSFT is allowed to just grandfather in undocumented binary blobs into OOXML for whatever reason, is OOXML truly an open format?

OOXMLhoaxes would have you believe that ODF has this same problem:

So why does no one ever mention that ODF can contain binary data within the XML ?

But, this is of course shenanigans. ODF is based on an open source package. Since the package is open source, we all know the code that would create the binary blob and can document it and recompile it. MSFT has not offered the code to authoritatively read their own binary blobs. And let's not talk about reverse-engineering being viable for use by large companies. This would open them up to patent lawsuits if MSFT chose to go that route.

From the same blarticle:

In the past the Office 2003 XML formats did indeed contains embedded binary date within the file. This of course due to the fact that this format consisted of a single XML file.

So, Office 2003 also has undocumented binary blobs? Well, so much for XML making it easy for one to decode previous Office formats.

Looks like I won't be chewing on my foot after all. Here's the search I did to find out about the OOXML undocumented binary blob problem in case you'd like a starting point.

My mistake.. assumed MS had some intelligence left

[foreverdisillusioned]

I just assumed that, since Office is their second most important product and OOXML is obviously a carefully constructed weapon to counter the looming threat of ODF and OSS in general, they'd have enough sense to act with some sense of... subtlety or something.

For now, they may still be king but Microsoft's market share isn't the impenetrable fortress it was in the late 90s/early 00s. OS X, Linux (Ubuntu especially), Google, Firefox (and now ODF) have made a significant, measurable impact these last few years. it seemed like they were going to take the smart route and at least FEIGN an interest in open standards/open formats (kind of like Vista feigns having *nix-type security)... instead, they're now flailing around with the ole' triple-E gauntlet (Embrace/Extend/Extinguish), and this time... it's with their own proprietary standards!? Haven't they seen enough backlash to realize this is only going to hurt them in the long run? Is ANYONE at all looking beyond their next quarterly earnings report?

I guess I simply overestimated the overall sanity and intelligence of those in charge. Cue the Ballmer-chair jokes... they're juvenile, but really, what else is there to say?

Re:More cheese with that whine?

[smittyoneeach]

No, the basis for complaint is valid.
You paid real cash money for something to work a certain way, and it did, until your proprietary-vendor overlord makes up some crappy reason for removing the functionality.
While the specific instance of removing support for ancient formats isn't likely to have too much catestrophic effect, the precedent is well worth bitching about.
The least Redmond could do is turn the converter code over to the public domain, so that, when the unforseen requirement to, say, compare ancient versions of Uncle Hezekiah's will suddenly crops up, people don't have to spend a ton of money to open a simple file.
Of course, there is the business model of having a stable of ancient computers with creaky Windows versions and applications, just for these moments, but that business is so boring as to be hideously expensive.

Re:More cheese with that whine?

[blind monkey 3]

It seems that just because it is Microsoft you're whining about people objecting to losing functionality , I hope people object regardless of whether it is Microsoft or Apple or Linux if functionality is removed without consent or choice (I do appreciate it is not as easy to have that happen with the open source model, one of it's strengths - and yes, it does have weaknesses too).

printing is not the solution...

[Anne Honime]

...unless you do it professionnaly on acid and bleach free paper, with real ink. Laser toner won't stick to paper for more than 10 ~ 15 years, after that it begings to turn back to powder. Thermal (old fax) paper is worse, inkjet printers are marginaly better but don't expect anything to last over 30 years with home and office printing technologies.

it's not like it's YOUR data or anything

[toby]

Data obsolescence is a huge problem. MS doesn't give a damn, their business model is to sit between you and your data. (OOXML versus ODF.)

Apple also did something like this (or worse) when they EOL'd Classic in Leopard. Millions of files become inaccessible overnight because the applications to read them simply cannot be run. It's thoughtless and cynical and extremely destructive.

The summary is not alarmist. Data obsolescence happens every day. It's a fatal flaw in the proprietary software model that RMS correctly identified decades ago.

ZIP is an open format

[DrYak]

2) ZIP (tm) is widely used by countless libs and apps, and decompression has been reverse engineered, open sourced, dissected, inspected, and neglected (Apologies to Arlo Guthry) to death.

ZIP has not been reverse engineered, for the simple reason that from day 1 it ZIP has been an open format.
I still have some floppy laying around with early version of the software which included a complete documentation of the format. Documentation of the containers, and the various compression algorithme that where available back then up to Shrink/Expand (The modern Deflate/Inflate weren't introduced yet back then).

Anyone wishing could back then re-implement ZIP support into his/her own code.

Which in itself is one additional argument showing why trusting Microsoft formats is bad.

Today, they just removed support for archaeologically-old formats. How long until someone in a marketing department in Redmond decides it would be a brilliant idea to remove support in current DOC/PPT/XLS format in order to force people to move to OOXML formats ?

Precedent?

[hadaso]

> ... the precedent is well worth bitching about.

I have an original WIN98 disk, and everything that came with it, including the original PC it came own. Several years ago I had to reformat the HD and reinstall WIN98. It was not the first time I did it. After instalation the usual thing to do is to install all the available security updates. The way they designed WIN98 is that there was an "automatic update" feature that did it. It was advertised as an important element in the OS. However when MS stopped supporting this OS they not only stopped providing new updates, security or no. They also removed all the old ones from the automatic updates site, replacing the functionality with a message that says they no longer support this product. So you're stuck with the original 1998 that cannot be updated with all the security updates that were produced until they dropped support. Well... it's not that you cannot get the updates: you can download all the hundreds of updates produced over the years as individual files, then manually install them one by one, if you know what you're doing. So I thought there must be a way to get all of them bundled in one file. I called M$. I was identified as their customer (I did send in the registration card: the one that said "Do you want to know who the most important person is at microsoft? (flip page) It you! The customer!") Well, I was on file, they know I have WIN98, they don't have any other way to provide the udates to WIN98 except by hundreds of individual files, but they offered to sell me an upgrade to WinXP for the full price.

So this is certainly not the first time they remove functionality from their products. They could leave the WIN98 update site in the state it was on the last day they still supported the product. Or they could pack all the updated so one could get them in one installer file if one needed to reinstall the OS. They chose to remove the automatic update functionality and push anyone who needs to reinstall to original 1998 version with no updates (except for a few made manually if one really needs them).

I didn't get XP for that machine. It was not strong enough for XP, and I saw no reason to pay for an OS that would eventually be made dysfunctional by the vendor who believes that end of support means also removal of all past updates. I have WIN98 partially installed on that PC. "partially" means the OS is installed, but no drivers and no apps are. Like all Windows installations several hours of shoving various vendor CDs in and out are needed to make it useful, and puting in a lightweight liveCDE Linux distro takes much less time ...

No, Word for Mac is not blocked

[LionMage]

Intrestingly enough, it looks like this update blocks ALL versions of files saved by Word for the Mac. It even blocks the most current version of Word for the Mac, Word 2004 for Mac.

I'm shocked that nobody else checked TFA to verify your claims; even more shocked that you got modded +5 Informative when your comments are actually factually false.

According to the Knowledgebase article:

Double-click the FilesBeforeVersion registry entry, and then type the value in the Value data box that corresponds to one of the values in the following table.

For example, the default value of this entry is set to "Word 6.0 for Windows" or "101." This setting means that all Word documents that were created in Word 1.x for Windows through Word 2.x for Windows Taiwan are blocked from opening. You can increase or decrease the default version. The versions that are specified in the list are in ascending order.

(Emphasis added by me.) Now, if you look at the provided handy table of values, you see that the two versions of MS Word for Mac that are directly compatible with OS X, registry values 195 and 268 (for Word X for Mac, and Word 2004 for Mac, respectively) are below the default cut-off on the table. In fact, even Word 98 for the Mac (which can only run on OS X in Classic) falls below the cut-off on the table. Only products with corresponding values from the table numerically below 101 (those appearing above the cut-off line in the table) will be blocked.

Since Office 2004 for Mac is still a supported product, it would be insane for Microsoft to block its files from being loaded in the Windows version of Office. I admit these instructions are confusing, but the KBase article clearly does not say what you claim it is saying.

Incidentally, according to the table and the above quoted text, the only Mac Word document formats that are blocked by default in this service pack are the following:

• Word 4.x for Macintosh
• Word 5.x for Macintosh

And that's it. Even Word 6 for Mac isn't blocked, because it falls after the magic cut-off.