[accesscomp] Running Multiple Versions of Word on the same system without a lag
- From: "Reginald George" <adapt@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: <accesscomp@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>, "Adaptive technology information and support." <ati@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 8 Apr 2009 06:27:52 -0500
Sorry for the multiple post, but some of us have to do this. So I thought it
would be helpful. A friend sent a long, probably ten page article about this
subject. I reproduced the last part of it below. But I'll excerpt the
important part at the top. He covers licensing issues and everything else.
But he confirms my own experience that you can do this and, you don't have to
choose a different folder. You can even install Office 2003 after installing
Office 2007 and it will work. The only problem has been the long lag when
switching between Office versions. The tip below which requires a small
registry edit does resolve this issue, and I will be doing this from now on
whenever Offfice 2003 and 2007 are going to live happilly on the same system.
To save people time I copied the tip first, then a much longersection that
anyone who is really interested in doing this should read for background.
Reg
But wait...this is important! Before you close up shop and start working on
this reg fix, open the version of Word that you will want to be your default.
In other words, say you have two versions of Word on your system. You want to
use 2007, but you want 2003 to be the version that opens by default when
you click on a DOC file. Open Word 2003 before you insert the fix below. This
will ensure that Word 2003 is the last version opened and it will, if necessary,
reset the registry to that version. (More on getting around this default in the
next section.)
Now make sure Word is closed and open the Registry. To open the registry, click
Start > Run (or hit Windows + R) and type REGEDIT into the Run dialog box
and hit Enter. Note that if this doesn't do anything, you're using a system
where the administrator has taken away your ability to edit the registry so
you don't mess it up!
Once within the registry, click the + (plus sign) to expand the
HKEY_CURRENT_USER folder.
Scroll down and locate the Software folder and expand that one. We have a long
journey ahead, so hang in there!
Once within the Software folder, scroll down that branch of the folder tree
until you find the folder for Microsoft. Click the + to expand that one.
Now scroll down to locate the Office folder.
There you'll see the numbered versions of the Office versions you have. 2007 is
version 12, 2003 is version 11, 2002 is version 10 and so on down the scale.
This fix can be used for all recent versions. Or at least, I know it works as
far back as 2000. I can't confirm anything earlier. But if you're still using
a version older than 2000, speed is obviously not an issue for you!<grin>
Expand the folder for the version you want to speed up. (Note, this speed up
fix will only help you if you are running multiple versions. So if you only
have one version of Office on your system...don't bother with this setting,
as it won't do anything for you.)
Move to the Word folder and expand that. Almost there!
Okay, locate the Options folder and select that one. This is the folder where
you'll be adding a new registry key.
With the Options folder selected in the route we took above, click Edit > New >
DWORD Value, as shown below.
***we would press alt E for edit, then choose new dword value.
This will insert a new registry key into the Options folder. It will be
highlighted in edit mode so you can go right ahead and start typing the name of
this key.
Carefully type the following as the name, exactly as shown: NoRereg Hit the
Enter key after typing the name to have the name accepted.
Now double click or press enter on this new key to open it. The dialog box
below will display. The Value data will read 0 (zero) by default. Change that
setting to the number 1 and click OK to accept that value.
Then close the registry. You did it!
So what is it that you've done? Well, you went into the Word registry settings
for the version of Word you selected and you set a new registry key. The key is
an option that stops Word from reregistering itself if another version is the
current default. The value of 1 means Yes. So the NoRereg (no reregistering) is
set to Yes...i.e., don't do it! This will cause Word to ignore the default
version and just open, without taking several minutes to go through the
reregistering hassle.
***okay, here's the longer version.
But I recently learned about a wonderful, and amazingly simple registry fix
that will allow you to switch between versions in about the time it takes you
to click its icon!
Granted, this is a registry edit, so I must add the warning that messing up the
registry can seriously trash your computer. Take precautions and don't do
this if you have no idea what you are doing! Either back up all your registry
settings or set a roll-back point in Windows
before you go into your registry. That said, if you're careful, this is a
pretty easy fix.
Now, unfortunately, this fix only works with Microsoft Word. If I find a fix
for other apps, particularly Access, which I've discovered is nearly worse
than Word to reconfigure between versions, I'll let you know. For now, I can
only remove your Word lag pain.
Also know that, before you do this you'll not only want to make sure that Word
is closed, but also read this entire article so you know about a few caveats
that may change your mind about using this option.
But wait...this is important! Before you close up shop and start working on
this Reg fix, open the version of Word that you will want to be your default.
In other words, say you have two versions of Word on your system. You want to
use 2007, but you want 2003 to be the version that opens by default when
you click on a DOC file. Open Word 2003 before you insert the fix below. This
will ensure that Word 2003 is the last version opened and it will, if necessary,
reset the registry to that version. (More on getting around this default in the
next section.)
Now make sure Word is closed and open the Registry. To open the registry, click
Start > Run (or hit Windows + R) and type REGEDIT into the Run dialog box
and hit Enter. Note that if this doesn't do anything, you're using a system
where the administrator has taken away your ability to edit the registry so
you don't mess it up!
Once within the registry, click the + (plus sign) to expand the
HKEY_CURRENT_USER folder.
Scroll down and locate the Software folder and expand that one. We have a long
journey ahead, so hang in there!
Once within the Software folder, scroll down that branch of the folder tree
until you find the folder for Microsoft. Click the + to expand that one.
Now scroll down to locate the Office folder.
There you'll see the numbered versions of the Office versions you have. 2007 is
version 12, 2003 is version 11, 2002 is version 10 and so on down the scale.
This fix can be used for all recent versions. Or at least, I know it works as
far back as 2000. I can't confirm anything earlier. But if you're still using
a version older than 2000, speed is obviously not an issue for you!<grin>
Expand the folder for the version you want to speed up. (Note, this speed up
fix will only help you if you are running multiple versions. So if you only
have one version of Office on your system...don't bother with this setting,
as it won't do anything for you.)
Move to the Word folder and expand that. Almost there!
Okay, locate the Options folder and select that one. This is the folder where
you'll be adding a new registry key.
With the Options folder selected in the route we took above, click Edit > New >
DWORD Value, as shown below.
This will insert a new registry key into the Options folder. It will be
highlighted in edit mode so you can go right ahead and start typing the name of
this key.
Carefully type the following as the name, exactly as shown: NoRereg Hit the
Enter key after typing the name to have the name accepted.
Now double click this new key to open it. The dialog box below will display.
The Value data will read 0 (zero) by default. Change that setting to the number
1 and click OK to accept that value.
Then close the registry. You did it!
So what is it that you've done? Well, you went into the Word registry settings
for the version of Word you selected and you set a new registry key. The
key is an option that stops Word from reregistering itself if another version
is the current default. The value of 1 means Yes. So the NoRereg (no
reregistering)
is set to Yes...i.e., don't do it! This will cause Word to ignore the default
version and just open, without taking several minutes to go through the
reregistering
hassle.
How did I know what registry key you could set to do this? That's a trick in
itself. When programmers create software, they often add options, but for one
reason or another (usually because the company decides they don't want to
support the option) not all these registry changes are documented, or finding
info on them is something done only by those who really want to hunt and whine
for a fix. Although this fix has apparently been around since at least version
2000, because it works for that version, it's been pretty much undocumented
until the recent MVP summit when and MVP complained about the lag time and
a wonderfully helpful Microsoft staffer hunted down and dug up this information
and shared it with us.
Herb Tyson,
author of the Word 2007 Bible, got the information and added it to his Word
2007 blog:
http://word2007bible.blogspot.com/2007/03/word-2007-and-word-2003-can-co.html.
Then he emailed me to make sure I knew about this fix, since he knew I've been
whining about the lag time with 2007 switches.
I swiped that info from his blog for this article. (Thanks Herb! And Beth! And
Mr. Wonderful Softie!) [Yes, I'm protecting his identity so he can continue
his covert work on our behalf.<smile>]
Caveats!
Okay, so now you can open Word 2007 and it'll just pop open with no worries
about whether it's at the front of the line or not. You'll want to go through
the other versions of Word on your system and add a similar NoRereg option key
into the Word > Options folder for each of those versions, too. Then you
can open any version of Word and it'll open instantly (assuming you don't have
add-ins or other junk that might cause different delays). But at least you
will no longer have to wait for that Reconfiguring screen to go away before you
get on with your work.
However, you have done something else. You've stopped each version of Word from
resetting itself as the new default version. So what if you have a file
that you want to click and have it open in say 2003, but you have 2007 set as
your default. Yes, this can be a problem.
If you want to open say a 2003 doc in 2003, you can first open Word 2003, then
use the File > Open dialog box to retrieve the file, rather than attempting
to open the file by clicking it right from Windows Explorer, because doing so
would cause it to open in the default version...Word 2007, assuming that
is your current default.
Another workaround is to add shortcuts for each version of Word into your
SendTo folder, as shown below. Then you can just right click any file and you'll
find the option of choosing the program you want to open the file.
Granted, you can also use the OpenWith option, but I find using the SendTo
trick generally faster.
One last item you need to keep in mind is that the underlying document
structure for 2007 has changed. That's why they are now called .docx, because
they
use the newer XML format for their architecture. This means that older versions
of Word won't recognize them unless you install a special
compatibility pack
for previous versions or save out the .docx as a .doc file.
However, you should receive an error message if you attempt to open a .docx
file in a previous program that only recognizes .doc formats. The error should
tell you that the .docx file was created in a newer version and then offer to
download the compatibility pack. See this KB for details on that scenario:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/919026/.
(Thanks, again, Beth...for this link.)
Now you can have one version, such as 2007, as your default when you choose to
create a new Word document. This will force you to work with the new software
more often, hence you'll learn it faster. But if you need to work with a
previous version, you can either open that version directly or use SendTo to
pass
the needed file to the needed version...all without twiddling your thumbs
waiting as each version resets.
block quote
For more information on using the SendTo folder for shortcuts, see Greg's
article on this subject:
http://www.computorcompanion.com/LPMArticle.asp?ID=94
block quote end
Should you realize that your default choice is not the best for your workflow,
you can go back and reset which one becomes the default. To do this, go to
the NoRereg key for the version you want to become the new default and change
the value to 0 (zero). Then go open that version. It'll do its thing to reset
itself as the default.
Now if only I knew about this trick many years ago...I would have saved hours
of wait time over these many years of using multiple versions!
***Comment from Reg.
I also have installed multiple versions of Office on multiple computers without
choosing different folders, so it's cool that he documented that this works.
And from now on I'll be using that registry fix to remove the lag time when I
do it. And the licensing restrictions be hanged!
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