[Learnatic]

Hi all,
I'm thinking of purchasing a new Lappy for work.
I have a lot of my works programmes on my Desktop XP 2 (incl Office 2007).
I've been told they are incompatible.
This is a very big concern as I thought they would be able to "talk" to each other.
I am losing sleep and any advice/opinion would be appreciated.
Thanks.

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Whilst it's true many programs that run fine on XP won't necessarily run on Vista unless the program's developers have recently updated it and expressly state that it does run on Vista, your Office 2007 applications should all work just fine despite what you've been told. Office 2007 is, after all, the latest current version, and no way would Microsoft release Vista unable to run it. That would be extremely counter-productive in their efforts to sell either of them.

Any version of Office from 2003 onwards will run on Vista I've been told by a PC World business advisor. And from personal experience I can tell you that even Office 2000 will run on Vista except for Outlook 2000 which just wouldn't play nicely.

As for your other applications, they might run, they might not. Trying them is the only surefire way of knowing and not just relying on "what someone told you", but Office 2007 should be fine.
Also, be wary of people telling you which applications won't run on Vista, especially if they sell software themselves!
Or, they might simply be repeating what they've heard elsewhere and just assumed it must be true.

Edited by pip22, 16 November 2007 - 07:09 AM.

[pip22]

Whilst it's true many programs that run fine on XP won't necessarily run on Vista unless the program's developers have recently updated it and expressly state that it does run on Vista, your Office 2007 applications should all work just fine despite what you've been told. Office 2007 is, after all, the latest current version, and no way would Microsoft release Vista unable to run it. That would be extremely counter-productive in their efforts to sell either of them.

Any version of Office from 2003 onwards will run on Vista I've been told by a PC World business advisor. And from personal experience I can tell you that even Office 2000 will run on Vista except for Outlook 2000 which just wouldn't play nicely.

As for your other applications, they might run, they might not. Trying them is the only surefire way of knowing and not just relying on "what someone told you", but Office 2007 should be fine.
Also, be wary of people telling you which applications won't run on Vista, especially if they sell software themselves!
Or, they might simply be repeating what they've heard elsewhere and just assumed it must be true.

Edited by pip22, 16 November 2007 - 07:09 AM.

[Learnatic]

Thanks mate for the swift reply. Your advice has helped me.
I feel I'll go ahead wi' the purchase and make sure I have Office 2007 on both machines.
A friend recently sent me a document to open with suffix ".docx". It turned out it would only open in Office 2007.
I opened it and sent it back after saving it using the option in 2007 to save as a ".doc" compatible with "Word 97-2003" ( among other options).
Cheers from Australia.

[starjax]

you should also run vista upgrade advisor
this will tell you if your software will work under vista. Some of your applications may not be compatible, but Microsoft applications will be (as stated by pip).

[Learnatic]

Geeeeeze, you blokes know everything.
Ran the scan and it's OK except for the older Nero (which is no problemo).
You've put my mind at rest with a confidence not usual for a person of my 'expertise'.
Thanks me maties,
Max.

[pip22]

You're welcome Learnatic. as for "knowing everything" -- far from it. Just some of us have probably been messing with computers and software longer than you, and knowledge comes from experience. I started when a 'mouse' was just a four legged vermin the cat dragged in -- I just had a keyboard and screen and you had to type commands to make it do anything - which wasn't much after all the time and effort!

[redline582]

Unfortunately most of the experience has more grief than success haha. I'm only 18 and have just recently gotten my A+ certification but even with that trying to set up a network using old Win98 machines takes about 7 times more time than you plan for it to. By the way learnatic if at all possible (this is just a suggestion and personal opinion) i would try to find a laptop with XP instead of Vista because Vista still has a lot of bugs to be worked out, it's extremely resource intensive compared to XP, everything has been moved around and takes quite a while to find if you havent used it before, and it's practically impossible to network it with other machines especially if they are mostly XP or 9x. Good Luck!