# End of Support for Office XP and Office 2003



## Corday (Mar 3, 2010)

Extended support for Office 2003 ends April 8, 2014. Extended support for Office XP (not the OS) ended 7/12/2011


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## albertjwara (Apr 2, 2013)

*Re: End of Support*

Hi,


Really, it is a bad news for office 2003 users. So, it is better to upgrade your legacy system as soon possible.


Thanks


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## macropod (Apr 11, 2008)

*Re: End of Support*

Existing Office 2003 installations will continue working just fine. All the loss of support means for existing installations is that MS won't be issuing any more bug fixes for it. Even Office 2000 still works fine on older OSs, and that's where the biggest issue with loss of support comes into play - old software often ends up being incompatible with newer OSs, so at some time in the future you'll end up having to upgrade Office when you need a new PC with a new OS.


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## greenbrucelee (Apr 24, 2007)

*Re: End of Support*

this ^

Just because support ends does not mean you have to upgrade.

Many businesses will use xp for years to come even after ms stop supporting it which I believe they are going to extend the time past next year. This is because it works and does what its supposed to.


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## cgc018 (Jan 22, 2012)

*Re: End of Support*



> Many businesses will use xp for years to come even after ms stop supporting it which I believe they are going to extend the time past next year.


Is this speculation or did Microsoft announce somewhere that they were going to continue support past April 8th?


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## greenbrucelee (Apr 24, 2007)

*Re: End of Support*

I read somewhere that they are because businesses are not upgrading but as the business point of view my place of work has no plans to upgrade infact our imaging machines still use windows 2000.

It is very expensive for businesses to do license and software upgrades and from a business point of view if it works and doesn't cost you money then that's a good thing.


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## cgc018 (Jan 22, 2012)

*Re: End of Support*

I hope that what you read is true. We have about 150 pc's that are on XP and due to Industry Regulations, we HAVE to have them replaced.


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## greenbrucelee (Apr 24, 2007)

*Re: End of Support*

it will be on the Microsoft site somewhere.


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## macropod (Apr 11, 2008)

*Re: End of Support*



cgc018 said:


> Is this speculation or did Microsoft announce somewhere that they were going to continue support past April 8th?


Given what's in the first post in this thread, your question makes no sense. Microsoft _has announced _that support for Office 2003 finishes on 8 April 2014. Microsoft _has not announced _that support would continue beyond that date, so I don't know where questions of speculation come into play.

And, as has also been discussed, the end of support does not mean Office 2003 will stop working or that it won't work on any new hardware you might obtain. Maybe it won't work on Windows 9 or 10 (quite some years away yet), but until that day comes and you need to upgrade to the new OS, there's no reason to upgrade Office 2003 unless you wan to take advantage of the newer versions' features.


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## greenbrucelee (Apr 24, 2007)

*Re: End of Support*



macropod said:


> Given what's in the first post in this thread, your question makes no sense. Microsoft _has announced _that support for Office 2003 finishes on 8 April 2014. Microsoft _has not announced _that support would continue beyond that date, so I don't know where questions of speculation come into play.
> 
> And, as has also been discussed, the end of support does not mean Office 2003 will stop working or that it won't work on any new hardware you might obtain. Maybe it won't work on Windows 9 or 10 (quite some years away yet), but until that day comes and you need to upgrade to the new OS, there's no reason to upgrade Office 2003 unless you wan to take advantage of the newer versions' features.


I was talking about xp.


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## macropod (Apr 11, 2008)

*Re: End of Support*

Office XP support has already ended, notwithstanding which, all that I said of office 2003, except for the support end-date (which was 7/12/2011 for office XP), applies equally to Office XP.


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## greenbrucelee (Apr 24, 2007)

*Re: End of Support*

i meant the os


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## macropod (Apr 11, 2008)

*Re: End of Support*



greenbrucelee said:


> i meant the os


This thread is about Office, not Windows, and this is the first time anyone (including you) has even mentioned the OS, except for the original thread which made it quite clear the discussion did not concern the OS. Please pay attention...


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## Wrench97 (May 10, 2008)

*Re: End of Support*

He referring to this post is all.

MS will offer Custom Support for XP but you'll pay dearly for it> Microsoft will still patch Windows XP for a select group | PCWorld



cgc018 said:


> I hope that what you read is true. We have about 150 pc's that are on XP and due to Industry Regulations, we HAVE to have them replaced.


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## macropod (Apr 11, 2008)

OK, but that's still not about Office.

PS: I've updated the thread title to more closely match its subject matter as per the first post. Hopefully anyone else reading it will take cognizance of what it's _meant _to be about...


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## Corday (Mar 3, 2010)

Thanx.


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## fcurt (Aug 9, 2012)

My question is: If I have saved something in Microsoft Office 2003 (and many of my backup files have been saved in this) will I still be able to open these files using, say Microsoft Office 2012 or later. If not then perhaps I should save all future backups in PDF Format?


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## Wrench97 (May 10, 2008)

What program are you using to save backups in office? or do you just mean .doc and .xls files?

Office 2012 will open Office 2003 files the only files you may have trouble with are Access databases.


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## fcurt (Aug 9, 2012)

Thanks for this. It's to do with .doc files. Interesting that you should mention Access databases as I do quite a bit of work in Access. What do you see as the problem please?


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## Wrench97 (May 10, 2008)

The database itself will move ok, the problem comes with the forms created and how the data is called, user level security is gone with Access 2013 so any calls for it in code will fail. These issues mostly appear on multi-user networks where access rights are tied to user group policy.
I not the expert in access but that's what I've gleaned from issues I've seen over the last couple years. > Convert a database to the .accdb file format - Access - Office.com


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## fcurt (Aug 9, 2012)

Thanks so much for your reply. It gives me the answer what I need. Great Forum


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## Hugo08 (May 29, 2014)

Thanks for the information, well, as you all strange windows xp. I'm using Windows 7 now, is good, but is not the same.


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