Setting Office 2003 the default when Office 2007 is also installed

[Africa_Volunteer]

I have a set of windows machines set up with both office 2003 and office 2007.
I want to default ALL Excel, Powerpoint, Access, Word and Publisher 2003
documents with office 2003, not 2007. The only solution that I've found is to
type the following into the start | run

"C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office11\Excel.exe" /regserver
"C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office11\Powerpnt.exe" /regserver

However, if I try
"C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office11\Msaccess.exe" /regserver
"C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office11\Winword.exe" /regserver
Each program will open, and subsequently set the default to office 2003. If I
open access 2007 or word 2007, office 2007 will completely reconfigure itself
to be the default for all office documents.

And if I try
"C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office11\Mspub.exe" /regserver
Nothing happens at all.

Reinstalling office 2003 does not fix the problem (office 2007 reconfigures
on start of any office 2007 program).

Any help would be much appreciated. Thankyou!

 

[garfield-n-odie [MVP]]

You can modify the Windows registry as described in
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=928091 "Information about
using 2007 Office suites and programs on a computer that is
running another version of Office" to stop the reconfiguring process.

 

[Africa_Volunteer via OfficeKB.com]

Rockin'. I'll definitely try the word fix, as described. For convienience,
I'll add it here:

To bypass the auto-registration for Word 2007, follow these steps: Exit Word
2007.
Start Registry Editor.In Windows Vista, click Start
type regedit in the Start Search box, and then press ENTER.

If you are prompted for an administrator password or for a confirmation,
type the password, or click Continue.
In Windows XP, click Start, click Run, type regedit in the Open box, and
then click OK.
In Windows Vista, click Start
type regedit in the Start Search box, and then press ENTER.

If you are prompted for an administrator password or for a confirmation,
type the password, or click Continue.
In Windows XP, click Start, click Run, type regedit in the Open box, and
then click OK.
Locate and then click to select the following registry subkey:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\12.0\Word\Options
After you select the subkey that is specified in step 3, point to New on
the Edit menu, and then click DWORD Value.
Type NoReReg, and then press ENTER.
Right-click NoReReg, and then click Modify.
In the Value data box, type 1, and then click OK.
On the File menu, click Exit to close Registry Editor.


The only question that I have left is for Access (the above doesn't apply for
Access, as there's no folder to set the registry option in)-

"The Windows Installer repair operation registers Access 2003 every time that
you start Access 2003 after you use Access 2007. Similarly, the Windows
Installer repair operation registers Access 2007 every time that you start
Access 2007 after you use an earlier version of Access."

So every office program must operate differently - and according to
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=928091, there's no way to configure Access
the way we did Word or Excel and Powerpoint?

It seems a bit strange that there's no way to do it, considering that for
both Word and Access, the program (the 2003 or the 2007) sets itself as the
default every time you open it.

Ultamately, I'm interested in being able to open Office 2003 documents in
Office 2007 optionally but have them default to Office 2003. Ideally, I could
compile all of these different fixes into one .bat file that could be used to
set all the fixes for those less ambitious (or myself later, when I get
confused in a few months).

Thank you so much for the quick reply; much appreciated.

You can modify the Windows registry as described in
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=928091 "Information about
using 2007 Office suites and programs on a computer that is
running another version of Office" to stop the reconfiguring process.

I have a set of windows machines set up with both office 2003 and office 2007.
I want to default ALL Excel, Powerpoint, Access, Word and Publisher 2003

[quoted text clipped - 19 lines]

Any help would be much appreciated. Thankyou!