Filed under: Security, Office, Productivity, Microsoft, OpenOffice.org
Office 2003 SP3 "blocks" old file formats
If you are an Office 2003 user who has recently installed Service Pack 3 who has found it necessary to open up file formats from the pre-Office '97 era, you may have noticed that Office now blocks access to these file formats. According to Microsoft, older Word, Excel, Lotus 1-2-3/Quattro and Corel Draw files are affected, because "...By default, these file formats are blocked because they are less secure. They may pose a risk to you." This isn't pure FUD, as Larry Seltzer points out, file parsing is an easy way for miscreants to attack computers using malformed data files. So rather than patch the holes for these, let's face it, ancient file formats, Microsoft has decided to just disable default access. Yeah, it's lazy - but we kind of don't blame them (even in the corporate or academic environment, when was the last time you access a document created in one of these formats?). For users who really need to access that old data, Microsoft's Support Site has posted instructions on how to modify the registry so that your program(s) can access the old files. This can be done manually or by running a pre-configured registry script.
Conversely, OpenOffice can be used to open the old file types. In any event, we highly recommend converting your old files to a new format anyway -- it really is more secure (and will help guarantee compatibility with future Office suites by Microsoft or someone else).
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Bufsabre said 7:12PM on 1-03-2008
In any event, i highly recommend converting to openoffice.org anyways.
Reply
michael said 12:16AM on 1-04-2008
You're kidding right? :P
If I had the choice between the cheap copy of OO and a copy of Office 03', Office 03' definitely wins in terms of features and service.
Bufsabre said 12:24AM on 1-04-2008
yep, i would definitly choose the king of proprietary formats
Rocketboy said 8:17AM on 1-04-2008
For the average user, yes. Open Office is a nice choice. If you do any VB scripting, that choice is right out.
Eric said 7:14PM on 1-03-2008
Nothing to lose by trying OpenOffice.org... it's free, after all.
It's replaced any other office software for me.
Reply
GoOrange said 7:43PM on 1-03-2008
Noteworthy, but not critical. Hopefully most people with a reasonable sense of computer savvy have long since converted these old documents.
Reply
Zoli Erdos said 8:56PM on 1-03-2008
"we highly recommend converting your old files to a new format anyway" - that sounds good, except you don't really know what to convert. There is no tool to list files with the old format - you can guess one by one, click properties one by one, convert them one by one - and do this all BEFORE SP3, since after that you won't be able to access them. A fact MS forgets to warn you PRIOR to the update. More on this:
http://www.zoliblog.com/2008/01/03/microsoft-decides-you-dont-need-your-old-data/
Reply
Peter said 9:21PM on 1-03-2008
This is pretty old news. Office SP3 was released more than 3 months ago, and the file format issue is stated right on the download page.
Reply
AOL-my-crater said 7:26AM on 1-06-2008
'They may pose a risk to you.' Hmmm... We need a preventive abortion for the problem!
In last June I take a prohibition to all of my authors to use Office 2003, as it is impossible for me to SPY all the my authors machines for compatibility. I said stop to Office 2003, and all the problems ended and prevented 4 the future...
Reply
Kostas said 5:02AM on 1-22-2008
I recently installed office2003 sp3. The problem is that emails that used to come correctly now apears in this form
RGVhciBQYXJ0bmVyLA0KDQogICAgICAgIGJlbGxvdyB5b3UgY2FuIGZpbmQgYSB2ZXJ5IGFnZ3Jl
c3NpdmUgcHJvbW90a
The same mails i can receive them correctly through office xp which is installed in another computer. Please does anyone knows how to overcome this problem without having to reinstall all office packet again?
Reply