Open Office (latest version) & Vista 64 bit?

[Amethyst]

Is anyone here using these 2 together? I'm just checking to see if they'll play nicely. There is no version of MS Office installed on the system in question. Java is installed. It's either this or a (legal) version of Microsoft Office Student and Teacher version 2003, but that's a concern putting such an old version of Office on a Vista 64 bit.

Also, I saw mentioned on a forum someone running his version of Open Office on a 64 bit system in 32 bit. How would someone do that? What could this person have been talking about?

Thanks in advance for any responses.

[exile360]

I see no reason why they would not . 32 bit programs run perfectly well on 64 bit systems (that is what is meant by running a program in "32 bit mode"). That's how MBAM works actually, it's still a 32 bit program running on a 64 bit OS. You can tell because of the added characters next to the process name in Task Manager .

[Amethyst]

OK, thank you Exile.

[exile360]

You're welcome

[Jacktivity]

Hi Amethyst,

If I can throw my two cents in here, I've used both Open Office and MS Office 2003 in Vista Ultimate x64 and can say they both work great. Be aware that a document created in MS Word will have slightly different formatting in Open Office. I had a two-page MS Word document that Open Office re-formatted to three pages. Subsequently opening the same document in MS Office 2003 did not change it back to the original. Luckily, I was working with a copy, so was able to go back.

I also found some of the other features of Open Office not so intuitive, but that could well be because I've used MS since the very first version, when Windows itself fit on one floppy disk. It's just a learning curve to use something different. For instance, I found the envelope addressing feature in Open Office to work very differently than the MS Word method. Just a few months ago, I switched back to MS 2003 full time and removed Open Office. So far, I've not really used Office 2007 much. Once again, because the interface is so different than what I'm used to. I'm not real big on ribbon bars and would just as soon have full pull-down menus. I don't mind using and learning new programs, but when I need to get some work done, sometimes it's just easier to stick with what I know.

[Amethyst]

Jacktivity,

I like MS Office 2003 as well, but it's just what I am familiar with and I don't do anything fancy with it. Mostly MS Word and sometimes extracting a nice picture from a .pps that someone has sent me...and I did make a .pps once just for the fun of it. My son has created .pps presentations at school but he's in grade 11 now and so far hasn't brought any of that home to work with (Fine by me, I don't particularly want stuff from school computers entering my network anyway!) I'm not sure if he ever will at this point in his school career. He has used MS Word to do homework assignments and he prints those out here at home, but he otherwise doesn't transfer files back and forth between home and school. I guess this would be an issue, though, if they used MS Office 2007 at school and then he brought a word file home and couldn't open it with our Office 2003.

He's just got his own laptop, and I figured he should have something that won't depend on what I have at home. Whatever he puts on it now, he'll have on it when he moves out in a couple of years, I figure. (Hey, that begs another question, doesn't it? What happens to my license to run Student and Teacher edition on my computers at home when son--the student--grows up and moves away? Do I have to uninstall it then? Yikes, I've only just thought of that! Maybe I'll have to sign up for some classes! )

He uses IE8 and likes it, but he is annoyed by the lack of a spell checker in that browser. I told him that Open Office may not give him a spell checker in IE8, but Firefox has one built in. He's always used Firefox on the family computer, up until he got his laptop, and I think he likes to try different things on it than what the parents are using.

Anyway, it's good to talk to someone who has used both on Vista 64 bit systems. Thanks.

[hello2007]

get ashampoo office 2008 its way better and free

[Amethyst]

Hello, hello! (OK, someone HAD to say it! )

Thanks for your response. I didn't realize Ashampoo had an office program. I had only briefly looked at their website to see what they had when I was researching firewalls and I didn't look closely to see what else they had.

[Porthos]

I guess this would be an issue, though, if they used MS Office 2007 at school and then he brought a word file home and couldn't open it with our Office 2003.

Get the Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details...;displaylang=en

[Amethyst]

Thanks, Porthos.