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).

Microsoft has released Service Pack 3 for Office 2003. If you haven't upgraded to Office 2007, there may be a few bug fixes and features in here for you. But beware, the update also shuts off a handful of features.

For example, you won't be able to open PowerPoint files created before the release of PowerPoint 97. The reasoning is that these files are less secure, but if you happen to have any old files lying around on your desktop, you might want to convert them before upgrading Office 2003.

Service Pack 3 includes a whole slew of security updates, and fixes some compatibility issues with Windows Vista, Internet Explorer 7, and Office 2007. The Service Pack includes previously released updates including Service Packs 1 and 2.

Microsoft is always under attack. This time around it's Powerpoint, again. Just a few days after patching bugs, PowerPoint was hit again. A Microsoft Security Program Manager was made aware of a proof of concept code that was affecting Microsoft Office 2003 PowerPoint, as well as PowerPoint 2000, and PowerPoint 2002. This hole allows for hackers to potentially execute code on a user's computer by the user opening a hacked PowerPoint file. A good idea would be to keep checking in with Microsoft, to see if a fix has been integrated by the Microsoft Security Response Alliance.