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).

I just love making those "XYZ-killer" titles, though I suspect you readers tire of it. Anyhow, at Microsoft's WinHEC conference on Wednesday it showed off Windows Media Photo, a new file format intended to displace JPEG. Though the CNet article isn't especially specific, Microsoft had all kinds of good things to say about its new baby, including how it can achieve twice the compression at the same quality as JPEG. The sticking point, of course, is the licensing. Windows Media Photo was created by the same team that built Windows Media Video and Audio, which does not suggest very open licensing terms, but Microsoft's Bill Crow says, "the philosophy has been that licensing should not be a restriction" to its adoption. I'd love to see a new image format with superior features, but we learned our lession from JPEG and GIF's patent issues, so that better be one unrestrictive license if Microsoft wants WMP to go anywhere. At any rate, even in the best case it will be years before it sees any widespread adoption. If you like technical documentation, Microsoft has the file format specifications available on its web site, and Microsoft intends to release software for integrating WMP into hardware and software soon.