[accesscomp] Re: Running Multiple Versions of Word on the same system without a lag

  • From: "David Whitehead" <d.h.whitehead@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: <accesscomp@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Fri, 10 Apr 2009 16:41:37 -0400

Hello there;

well, a friend of mine downloaded the;

http://www.ubit.ch/software/ubitmenu-languages/

that gives you the 2003 menus on the 2007 Word, Excel and PowerPoint? It sounds like this would eliminate the need for two versions on anyone's system.

however, she says she can't find the menu-bar, and the view bar?

if you download this plug-in, is it not suppose to show the menu-bar, as instead of the ribbon? in, 2007?

----- Original Message ----- From: "Wayne W Hinckley" <wwhinckley@xxxxxxxxx>
To: <accesscomp@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Thursday, April 09, 2009 4:31 PM
Subject: [accesscomp] Re: Running Multiple Versions of Word on the same system without a lag


Do a find for "UK" (without the quotes) and it will take you to the English version for UK and US.

HTH,
Wayne

----- Original Message ----- From: Reginald George
 To: accesscomp@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
 Sent: Thursday, April 09, 2009 2:15 PM
Subject: [accesscomp] Re: Running Multiple Versions of Word on the same system without a lag


Okay, sorry Wayne. After checking out the link you sent I'm not even sure it's the same program. The one you found is most definitely free for private users, which is great! Couldn't find a features list in English, but it sounds pretty cool. ----- Original Message ----- From: Wayne W Hinckley
 To: accesscomp@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
 Sent: Wednesday, April 08, 2009 8:43 PM
Subject: [accesscomp] Re: Running Multiple Versions of Word on the same system without a lag


 Is anyone on the list using the free download available from


 From The Peacegiver:



Learn to love your spouse with the love of Christ. The Spirit will sustain you.



 From The Peacegiver:



Learn to love your spouse with the love of Christ. The Spirit will sustain you.



 From The Peacegiver:



Learn to love your spouse with the love of Christ. The Spirit will sustain you.



 From The Peacegiver:



Learn to love your spouse with the love of Christ. The Spirit will sustain you.



 http://www.ubit.ch/software/ubitmenu-languages/

that gives you the 2003 menus on the 2007 Word, Excel and PowerPoint? It sounds like this would eliminate the need for two versions on anyone's system.

 Any feedback would be appreciated.

 Wayne

----- Original Message ----- From: Reginald George
   To: accesscomp@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
   Sent: Wednesday, April 08, 2009 11:50 AM
Subject: [accesscomp] Re: Running Multiple Versions of Word on the same system without a lag


Many folks are not ready to give up their Office 2003 until they learn the Office 2007 interface. It is quite a bit different. ----- Original Message ----- From: Scott Granados
   To: accesscomp@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
   Sent: Wednesday, April 08, 2009 12:29 PM
Subject: [accesscomp] Re: Running Multiple Versions of Word on the same system without a lag


Why would you want to bother running two versions? Newer versions are backward compatible.



----- Original Message ----- From: Reginald George To: accesscomp@xxxxxxxxxxxxx ; Adaptive technology information and support.
     Sent: Wednesday, April 08, 2009 4:27 AM
Subject: [accesscomp] Running Multiple Versions of Word on the same system without a lag


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!


__________ Information from ESET NOD32 Antivirus, version of virus signature database 3994 (20090407) __________

     The message was checked by ESET NOD32 Antivirus.

     http://www.eset.com


Other related posts: