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General discussion

Win 7 and Office 7 Compatibility Mode

Jun 23, 2010 6:16AM PDT

I have been googling this problem for two days, and haven't come close to seeing this problem. The systems my company have been using are XP Pro with Office 2007. I recently got a new VAIO VGN-NW350F with win 7, and installed Office 2007 Pro. Now, whenever I open a file saved on one of the XP machines, I get an error message that says in Excel that the format of the file is different than the extension. Do I want to open it. If I click yes, The file is gibberish. In Word, I get an error that says it can't read the encoding, and none of the encoding options work. All of the wonky files are saved as 97-2003 format. I opened the files on an XP machine, and saved as in 2007 format, and they work fine.Please help. My boss is convinced the only fix is to downgrade to XP.

Discussion is locked

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Should not be happening.
Jun 24, 2010 12:18AM PDT

I exchange docs with others a lot. But I do not have your exact setup HOWEVER this was found to happen when a corrupted usb stick was at the office. Same messages and same advice. As a test we emailed a doc over and that worked so we knew to look at other than Windows 7 issues.
Bob

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Afraid to say it is
Jun 24, 2010 4:05AM PDT

Thanks for the reply.
When I went back to the XP machine to save the file as 2007 format, I used the same SD card that I used to do the original transfer.
Ordered XP today.

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I hope it is clear
Jun 24, 2010 4:11AM PDT

That using that SD card could be an issue. Just like the USB memory stick story I told.

About XP. I hope you have a XP guru to handle that. I often find folk can't install this old OS proper. Many stumble on the old XP SATA hard disk issue.
Bob

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Installing is the easy part
Jun 24, 2010 4:36AM PDT

I've installed XP on other systems, and Sony has been VERY cool about putting drivers on their site, and even instructions. All I need is a USB Floppy drive for the SATA.

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Why not AHCI or IDE mode?
Jun 24, 2010 4:53AM PDT

Many skip the floppy method with a bios setting.
Bob

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BIOS?
Jun 28, 2010 10:32PM PDT

I've bee through the BIOS, and the only thing there is the boot order. Think the SD card will work?

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Is there a document on the BIOS screens?
Jun 28, 2010 10:38PM PDT

Since I'm not there I can't see if it's called something else. So far I have encountered over a dozen names for this feature.

Installing XP is rather torturous on modern gear. Example at http://forums.cnet.com/5208-7587_102-0.html?threadID=271360#2699006

We know the XP SATA issue and that's well discussed so I'll leave that there. Be sure to have Sony detail out the XP install plan. You'll save a lot of time.
Bob

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No, No document
Jun 28, 2010 11:11PM PDT

The only thing in BIOS that mentions the hard disc says boot priority and enable external or network boot devices. Sony put up detailed instructions: http://esupport.sony.com/US/perl/support-info.pl?info_id=337, and a lot of drivers. As I said, the only thing that i'm iffy on is using a USB SD card reader instead of the USB floppy. Buying a floppy drive to change 3 laptops seems a bit of a waste.

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Never used the SD Card method.
Jun 28, 2010 11:15PM PDT

I added the USB Floppy to my kit years ago. it was 15 bucks so compared to the cost of XP Licenses and all the work involved in getting XP going my opinion is that it's not a waste. It's just part of the install costs.

I've seen folk try and fail with slipstream too often. It's not funny to them when I pull out the USB floppy and get the job done in 20 or so minutes after they spent weeks trying to avoid the floppy.

There's a lesson somewhere.
Bob