Which to choose: Office 2000 or XP?

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I’m considering buying a new PC with Office preinstalled and would have a choice between Office 2000 and Office XP. Which would be a better bet? I’m using Office 97 on my current PC.

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if the cost is identical, get XP.

Depending on a pricing difference, i’d probably still say to get XP. It really makes no sense to get the old version, especially if you use Outlook, except to save a big pile of money now.

The one thing to compare is that both versions include the programs you need most. MS changed the suites around.

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Follow Woody’s advice – go to cheaperoffice.com and check out their prices and suite descriptions. They do an excellent job outlining the various packages.
– Bob

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I just had a new PC delivered, and I had the same choice. I choose Office 2000 because XP has copy protection (called the Registration Wizard or the Activation Wizard by those trying to disguise what it really is). Copy protection was a disaster when it was first tried in the 1980’s. See the most recent issue of Woody’s Office Watch for a few of the early disaster stories on Microsoft’s version. If Microsoft persists in this folly (Windows XP will will be next), I am going to take the machine the new one is replacing and put Linux on it and start learning it and its office programs.

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>If Microsoft persists in this folly (Windows XP will will be next), I am going to take the machine the new one is replacing and put Linux on it and start learning it and its office programs.

Legare, I actually did this because I had an older PC that just didn’t want to run Win 95 properly after a couple of years working fine. Even after a reformat/reinstall. I love RedHat Linux 6.2 and StarOffice 5.2 (both available for free download, cheap CD, or a CD with a 3rd party book) so much that I cant wait to install RedHat 7.1, etc, on my next PC. Needs change, but I don’t see ever moving beyond Office 97. In my future, I see one Windows PC for compatibility with the outside world and Linux on every other machine.

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Legare, ditto here. I am thinking the same thing.

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Actually, what really irks me (if I can borrow Andrew’s soapbox for a sec) is that I have spent the money, spent well over a thousand hours learning and applying VBA, spent at least a hundred hours teaching my coworkers to use it, and now, with XP I am being told to put on the dog collar and not go beyond the restraints of the leash.

If this is the future of Office, then I, for one, will gradually start to devote my time to learning the ins and outs of open source alternatives.

Not to say by any means that I have not been totally pleased with Office 2000 to this point. I have created some really marvelous Excel spreadsheet/code/semi-apps using VBA, thanks largely to the people here at Woody’s. I will not however, be subject to the whims of a suite which cannot rely on being better than the competition in order to generate future revenue.

(soapbox returned)

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>what really irks me . . . is that I have spent . . . well over a thousand hours learning and applying VBA

>If this is the future of Office, then I, for one, will gradually start to devote my time to learning the ins and outs of open source alternatives

Guess what? Your time learning VBA was not wasted if you go open source. I started using StarOffice (free to download, $50 for the cross platform — Windows, Linux and Solaris — CD, including a bound manual). It reads and writes MS Office fairly well so you can use it in a shared environment. Here’s the really cool part. It is built around StarBasic which is an awful lot like . . .

One MS Office feature I use a lot is the (Shift+F3) toggle case command. StarOffice did not have this command. with my VBA experience, I solved the problem in less than 15 minutes. Here is the code. Notice how familiar it looks . . .

Sub ToggleCase 
'written by Art Alexion 
'This macro works fine as long as the selection is in a word. it fails if it is not. 
'if anyone has the code to trap this error by displaying a warning if the selection is 
'not in a word, please email the update to me (arthur@alexion.com) 

If Selection.Font.CaseMap = 0 then
   Selection.Font.CaseMap = 1 
   Else If Selection.Font.CaseMap = 1 then
      Selection.Font.CaseMap = 2 
      Else if Selection.Font.CaseMap = 2 then 
         Selection.Font.CaseMap = 3 
         Else if Selection.Font.CaseMap = 3 then 
            Selection.Font.CaseMap = 1 
         End if 
      End if 
   End if 
End if 
End Sub 
'Selection.Font.CaseMap = 0 represents a word which has no formatting override. 
'Selection.Font.CaseMap = 1 represents a word which is formatted ALL CAPS 
'Selection.Font.CaseMap = 2 represents a word which is formatted all lower case 
'Selection.Font.CaseMap = 3 represents a word which is formatted Title Case 

So . . . open source alternatives have both the power with which you are accostomed and you don’t have to start over learning a macro language. Other open source software I am using uses JavaScript as the macro language. Eventually, you will want to learn Perl and Python, but you don’t have to.

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Thanks Art, encouraging to hear some specifics about StarOffice and the coding behind it. Hope after all!

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Unfortunately, it looks like not just Office but all MS products.

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I’m sticking with 2000 as long as we can get it and/or until MS issues the first service release. If you are a cutting edge type who wants to learn new features before other people, you could try XP, otherwise, I don’t see the advantage.

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I disagree! I think Office XP offers many enhancements that are subtle and beneficial. I’m not saying its perfect or desperately in need of a SR… but name a version of Office that didn’t.

Many of my friends have commented that after using XP, they could not go back. Its in the details… and XP has it.

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“…after using XP, they could not go back. Its in the details…”

Do you mean they wouldn’t *want* to go back, or that MS won’t *let* them go back, as in physically prevents it? I wouldn’t put it past MS but I hadn’t heard of that one before!

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ahhh what? I think thats looking for fault when there is none. You can run Office 97, 2000, XP on the same box in any combo. Thats what I have on my PC.

What I meant is: many have said that after using Office xp and getting use to the new features, they would not want to go back to prior versions.

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Yes, I thought that was probably the case – but you never know!!

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I just got Office xp Developer and my IT dept said that Office 2000 was not going to be sold anymore. We’re still on Office 97 with Win95 and in the next 6 mos we’re upgrading the whole company (1000+) to Office xp and Win2000

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>I disagree! I think Office XP offers many enhancements that are subtle and beneficial

I’ve been wanting to start a thread of Office 2000 and XP users where they list 3 features in the respecitve products, that did not exist in Office 97, and which they do not feel they could now give up.

For my own curiosity.

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Name the application with in office? For starters let me mention PowerPoint:

1. Multiple slide masters
2. The new task pane for slide sorting
3. The new task pane for applying layouts and designs
4. The new animation capabilities give powerpoint flash like capabilities (and they look cool)
5. UI SmartTags that give you greater control over copy/paste operations (and size layout control).

Woops I gave you 5, I stopped short to conserve bandwidth

One more point…. These capabilities I think these new tools have given me a 15% time savings on the presenations I have put together. I could not go back to a prior version of PPT.

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