Office 2003 update blocks older file formats

[FranMichaels]

I think the end users would like to know.

Office 2003 Service Pack 3, which was made available in September, blocks a lengthy list of word-processing file formats, including Word 6.0 and Word 97 for Windows, and Word 2004 for Macintosh. It also blocks older versions of Excel, PowerPoint, Lotus Notes, Corel Quattro spreadsheet, and Corel Draw graphics package....
http://www.news.com/Office-2003-update-blocks-older-file-formats/2100-1012_3-6224462.html?part=rss&tag=2547-1_3-0-5&subj=news

All I can say is, I'm glad that OOo opens old .docs "pretty well", and I've converted important documents to ODF (and .txt for a backup ;) ) :KS

[rfruth]

Good ole msft, ensuring future sales ...

[bufsabre666]

ive been using OOo for years and its way better then office anyways

[insane_alien]

hang on, wasn't that marketed with backwards compatability being one of the features?

o well, thank the devs for OOo multiplatform, multi format, supported till armagedon.

[Antman]

Typical Microsoft CRUD

[FranMichaels]

MS employee explains (http://blogs.msdn.com/david_leblanc/archive/2008/01/04/office-sp3-and-file-formats.aspx)

"We did a poor job of describing the default format changes. There is a KB article for it here - http://support.microsoft.com/kb/938810. In the KB article we stated that it was the file formats that were insecure, but this is actually not correct. A file format (with some exceptions, like .hlp files) isn't insecure – it's the code that reads the format that's more or less secure."

Pinning blame on the formats was a lame excuse. Nice that has been rectified. :)

The link provides registry fixes if you need to read documents in those formats... I can only imagine how much fun an archivist must have with digital data in formats no longer supported, due to being proprietary or otherwise...

Anyway, still a bit lazy of MS since they aren't tightening up their code and didn't provide a simple method to re-enable support for the formats.