does office 97 pro still work with win11?

retiredat44 · Feb 26, 2025

does office 97 pro still work with win11? I still have my DVD. Thanx.

antspants · Feb 26, 2025

I highly doubt Office 97 would be compatible with Windows 11, especially 23H2/24H2

Running on Windows Ten, most likely, but not Eleven. Even if you could, it wouldn’t be an easy task is my guess and I’d be concerned about the security aspects of this Office version which I believe Benjamin Franklin or maybe it was Moses, had used.

siliconbeaver · Feb 27, 2025

No any problem.

my Office97 Pro runs fine on 24H2. I mainly use its excel and word.

But any macros developed in Office 97 wouldn't work any more because of registry change and security change.

Windows 7 is last OS environment to run Office97 macros.

Office97 in my 24H2 (green marked)

Scott · Feb 27, 2025

retiredat44 said:
does office 97 pro still work with win11? I still have my DVD. Thanx.

You have a Windows 98 install disk? It'll run in in a Virtual Machine.

MisterEd · Feb 27, 2025

I have Windows 11 Pro 24H2 on my laptop but don't want to install Office 97 there because I already have Office 2021 Pro Plus on it.

However, I do have Windows 11 Pro 24H2 installed as a VM in Hyper-V. I have an original Office 97 Pro CD. It failed to install.

I also have Windows 10 Pro 22H2 installed as a VM in Hyper-V. Office 97 Pro installed OK in Windows 10. I think the difference was that Office 97 installed NTVDM. This is for16-bit app support. Windows 11 does not have that.

antspants · Feb 27, 2025

My question is, why in the hell one would take a risk with running this way out of date, security flawed version of Office? Each to their own I suppose.

spapakons · Feb 27, 2025

I haven't tried to install it on Windows 11 but you will have more chance to succeed if you run setup as Administrator to allow copying files to any system folder and make changes in Registry. As long as you only use the basic features of Word 97 and Excel 97 and not any macros, I wouldn't worry too much about security. I would see Office 97 like an advanced notepad, much like an improved version of Wordpad. To be able to open (not save) Word 2007 (docx) and Excel 2007 (xlsx) files you must also insta the relevant compatibility patch.

jimbo45 · Feb 27, 2025

antspants said:
My question is, why in the hell one would take a risk with running this way out of date, security flawed version of Office? Each to their own I suppose.

Easy answers :

1) "Becuse it can" or "can be made to"
2) Older applications / documents you want to run or access because they won't work on newer software
3) Saves money especially with those new wretched subscription things.
4) If you are running these just on a local network without a lot of internet access required then what's the risk. The HOST OS should IMHO be the ultimate gatekeeper for any security rather than applications running on it - but of course modern apps should be as secure as possible.

Why would you use a Horse for typical travel these days when you could use a car, a Harley, etc or swim when you could use a ferry / boat. Etc.

Cheers
jimbo

spapakons · Feb 27, 2025

Because he has already paid for the licence and doesn't want to pay for a newer version. Rather than illegally obtaining the new version he decided to use the old version. We still use Office 2000 everyday at work without issues. If you don't use macros there is no risk. Besides I agree, just keep Windows Defender updated and don't worry. Not every single application must be secure. If you want more peace of mind, block internet access to the application using the firewall. Also there are some old applications that cannot be replaced because there are no newer applications that do the same thing.

z3r010 · Feb 27, 2025

I'm with @antspants here, there are plenty of modern free alternatives that have the same functionality that it would be much wiser/safer to use in today's environment.

spapakons · Feb 27, 2025

Not quite, for example old Adobe Audition CC 2015 version can open and save to Dolby Digital (aka AC3) files. Very handy if you want to normalize those hard to hear movies. Newer versions cannot save to AC3 due to licensing issues. If I buy a new version (what more could possibly do? Waste of money!) I would have to save as uncompressed PCM in WAV files so I don't lose quality and use another utility to convert WAV to AC3, like the much older Sonic Foundry Soft Encode. Also I don't trust modern converters that do not let you adjust the quality and other AC3 settings and do the conversion. I want as much control as possible. This is only one example why not every single old application can be replaced by newer applications. I have also many old video applications, such as VirtualDub, that I have not yet found a modern application that has all these filters and effects with the ease of use of VirtualDub. I also use Handbrake, but I hate that you cannot see the video and cannot edit precisely to specific frames. If I see the corresponding frames in VirtualDub and set them in Handbrake, the edit is off by some frames and far from precise!

retiredat44 · Feb 27, 2025

we do use LibreOffice on Win10 and Win11. Just miss the simplicity of Office, word, and also the old PDF writers and readers.. I don't use advanced features.. and tired of constant updates... I saved al the addons and updates on cd's from all those years ago, for all the old programs. I still have the original Word 4.0 manual, directions. it's around here somewhere. there were no subscriptions then, you got the full package. I still have other old programs I am still using that work.

spapakons · Feb 27, 2025

Libre Office has not the same interface as Word. It confuses us that are familiar with Word and where to find certain features. Also, no matter how hard they try to convince us, it cannot do exactly what you can do with Word, at least not that easy. And about compatibility, I had created a Word document in one computer and opened it on another with Liber Office. The colors and layout of the images and tables were totally screwed and I had to correct them in order to modify the document. After saving it in Libre Office (as Word document) and opening it again from Word in another computer, the colors and layout were again screwed. No thanks, I would rather keep using an old version of Office and maintain compatibility with existing documents and familiarity with the interface. Spending valuable time to discover where is a specific feature and how to use it is counter-productive.

Berton · Feb 27, 2025

The one thing talked about over 30 years ago was that Windows-based programs would have a number of similarities with other Windows-based programs for their basic operation, supposed to make it easy to transition between different programs.

As for older Office, I have Office 2000 on a couple Notebooks working fine but as mentioned the Compatibility Pack [file conversion] needs to be installed on Office 2000, 2002/XP and 2003 to be able to use the newer file format that adds the x to the file extension as in .docx, .xlsx, etc.

I've had no issue with using the free office suites such as LibreOffice and OpenOffice that have their roots back to the old Star Office of 1992 [my first computer] and earlier. The executable files in them are named with an s at the beginning as in scalc, sbase, smath, swriter, soffice. LibreOffice lists more file formats it can open than OpenOffice.

spapakons · Feb 27, 2025

Working with documents is not enough. You must be able to share these documents with others. As said before, any images or graphics or whatever are misaligned when opened with Open Office or Libre Office and you have to spend time to fix them. Even after fixing and saving, they are again misaligned when opened again in Microsoft Office. Also the colors differ, other shade of "blue" is for Microsoft Office, other for Libre Office and any custom color is converted to the closest default shade for that color. Not very convenient when you have spend too much time creating a beautiful document.

And most of us are familiar with the shortcuts, the menus and where features are and how they work in Microsoft Office. This makes our work faster. Spending too much time looking where a feature is in Libre Office and how it works is a waste of time. Even if you devote time to familiarize with Libre Office, I prefer using Microsoft Office feels much better and easier to use.

Kees · Feb 27, 2025

spapakons said:
You must be able to share these documents with others.

That is for you!
I never share any Word or Excel documents with anybody.

If I want to share such documents I print them as pdf (or export them to pdf if possible in the office program).
And that pdf I would (if necssary) share to others.

So what counts for you, would not automatically count for others!

I myself have been using Office 2003 for many years on Windows 2000, XP, 7, 10 and 11 (newest version incluiding 23H2) without any problem.
Now I am on Softmaker Office 2021 Pro because of the free offer that they had in November 2024.
I am very happy with the possibility not to have that horrible ribbon, to which I tried to get accustomed to (used it about 2 years) but failed to get used to it.

In Office 2003 I indeed did use the Compatibility Pack to be able to use docx and xslx fileformats..

spapakons · Feb 27, 2025

I too don't like the ribbon of Microsoft Office 2007+ so I have installed Classic Menu which gives an Office 2003 menu to newer versions including Office 2024. And I believe you are the exception that don't care about compatibility. This is not everyone's opinion. Most do care about compatibility even if they rarely share their documents.

atari800xl · Feb 27, 2025

I've been using Excel 97 for more than 20 years now, every day, all day. Runs in any OS (even PE).
17mb worth of files (Word is in there too, but never use it):
Excel.exe, EXCEL8.OLB, launch.ahk, MSO7NLD.DLL, MSO97.DLL, MSOC.DLL
MSROUTE.DLL, Normal.dot, OSAINTL.DLL, SCANLOAD.DLL, WINWORD.EXE
WINWORD8.SRG, WWINTL32.DLL, XL8409.DLL, XL8413.DLL, XLCALL32.DLL, XLINTL32.DLL

Launch.ahk is an Autohotkey script to skip a "missing file" dialog.

Never failed on me. No install needed.

Kees · Feb 27, 2025

spapakons said:
And I believe you are the exception that don't care about compatibility.

I do care about compatibility. But only for use on my computer and that of my wife. I found out that Softmaker Office is very much compatible as far as all my Word and Excel files are concerned, so hardly any differences in layout or images. I have no desire at all to provide other people with my documents and excel sheets. But how do you know I am the exeption for that? Did you do a general user survey for that?

spapakons · Feb 27, 2025

No I didn't do a survey, but is hard to believe there are many people that would use anything else than a familiar application. Most novices hate learning new applications. They spent reasonable time to learn Microsoft Office, they would not like to spent more for another application that not the majority uses. The interface of Libre Office has many differences with that of Microsoft Office, enough to scare away novices.

does office 97 pro still work with win11?

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