using group policy to make office 2007 programs save with office 2003 formats

By default Office 2007 programs save in the new Office 2007 format, which several years after its release is still a problem for clients/users who haven't installed the Office 2007 Compatibility Pack for the older Office programs.

So for years I've been manually setting up each program to save in the old format each time I logged into a laptop as a new user. Here's the method for using group policy to make office 2007 programs save with office 2003 formats:

open Group Policy Management

Expand the forest

expand domains

expand your domain

right click on default domain policy and click edit

right click on administrative templates and choose add/remove templates

add the templates that you downloaded and unzipped from here:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=73d955c0-da87-4bc2-bbf6-260e700519a8&displaylang=en

alter the save settings as necessary there in group policy

if necessary run gpupdate /force on the client machines

storing product key in Office installation files

If storing the Office installation files on a network share - and using an open license for all your installs, it's prudent to store the product key in the install files so you don't have to enter it each time.

In Office 2003, it was stored in setup.ini - but in Office 2007, it's stored in config.xml in either a Enterprise.WW/ Standard.WW/ Pro.WW or ProPlus.WW folder - based on what version you're installing.

More info here:

http://www.bizzntech.com/2009/08/05/how-to-auto-enter-microsoft-office-2007-product-key-while-installation

uninstalling Office 2003

Long ago, I stopped installing Office from CDs. There were too many instances where I was doing something with Office (uninstalling, running it for the first time on a new profile, or accessing some feature) where it wanted the original install CDs. So I started either installing it from the network (for desktops) or installing it from a folder on the HD where I had copied all install files.

I thought that this problem went away with Office 2003 - so it did not ask for CDs after the original install. But twice in two weeks I was proven wrong. These were both on installs I did not do since I still to this day follow my Office install methods even though I had thought they were no longer necessary.

Anyway - in each ocassion, I was doing an uninstall, and it wanted the original install CDs. And of course, the god damn install files are different for an OEM CD and a retail CD. I'm just bitter because today I was doing an uninstall remotely and I had to retrieve about 30 CAB files remotely (I found this site - which was immensely helpful, even though it didn't have quite all the CAB files I needed, the rest I FTP'd to myself) - http://turbidvisions.com/misc/msoffice2003/

So the lesson for today is - keep installing from sources you will always have access to. You won't regret it.