Office 2003 Service Pack Disables Older File Formats

time961 writes "In Service Pack 3 for Office 2003, Microsoft disabled support for many older file formats. If you have old Word, Excel, 1-2-3, Quattro, or Corel Draw documents, watch out! They did this because the old formats are 'less secure', which actually makes some sense, but only if you got the files from some untrustworthy source. Naturally, they did this by default, and then documented a mind-bogglingly complex workaround (KB 938810) rather than providing a user interface for adjusting it, or even a set of awkward 'Do you really want to do this?' dialog boxes to click through. And of course because these are, after all, old file formats ... many users will encounter the problem only months or years after the software change, while groping around in dusty and now-inaccessible archives."

Re:Not really that bad

[deniable]

There's already an ADM file for group policy in the linked KB article. If you're using group policy, it's a five minute job for the whole domain.

this may not be such a bad thing

[macurmudgeon]

I wonder if this is the start of Microsoft finally unburdening themselves from all that awful legacy code that's been such an albatross and has contributed to such bloated apps and OS?

Is this actually a new thing?

[jesterzog]

Is this definitely just coming with SP3, or has it been around for longer? I hit this issue, or a very similar one, in our organisation several months ago. A user had some old Word 2.0 documents stored on a network drive (from the mid 1990's, before we enforced the use of a DMS), and they wouldn't open in Word 2003. The error dialog that Word displayed only mentioned the registry policy settings (without specifically saying the version was old), and I eventually found a knowledge base article that described the registry hack.

Re:Default value goes back pretty far

[that this is not und]

Me, I'm just hoping nothing important is stored in PowerPoint documents.

But I do know a guy (now retired) who wrote reports with photographs in them by dragging in big unresized jpegs and tiffs to PowerPoint slides, then dragging the Powerpoint slides into Word documents. Thankfully after he retired I have mostly turned all those monsters (why should a 27 page report be 45MB???) into PDF files so the point in my case is moot.

I truly do hope that ownership documents that need to survive over 100 years are not stored in any format that Microsoft touches.

Re:Default value goes back pretty far

[ta bu shi da yu]

Ultimately, there is nothing wrong with the "file formats". A file format is not insecure. The issue is that Microsoft is shipping insecure code in Office 2007 and 2003 which may break when these files are opened and allow malicious executable code to run in the user's security context. Rather than fix this insecure code in a shipping product, their policy is to turn off the code and tell the user, "if you want to take the risk, turn it back on, but we won't make it easy."

Thank you!!! Sanest comment I've seen in a long time.

Re:Default value goes back pretty far

[digitrev]

Playing devil's advocate here, but there are a lot of career students. Some might even need to take a look at their first year notes on eigenvectors because they need to deal with it in the last year of their Ph.D, and they remember really liking the prof that year.

Just because you don't see a reason for it, doesn't mean there isn't one.

Not really

[TiggertheMad]

Their sneaky brand of evil is saying two conflicting things and making us believe they work together.

Ok, I love to MS bash as much as the next guy, but I cannot fault them for what you are mentioning. The thing that a lot of MS haters forget is that it is a HUGE company, and the right hand often really doesnt know what the left hand is doing, and often seperate teams have their own agendas.

Modern MS is like the government: There might be a few people that are trying to pull shit, but for the most part it is just a big, slow, beauracracy.

Re:Default value goes back pretty far

[plaxion]

My thoughts exactly. But at least we can look on the bright side... we can still open these formats in Open Office. Which, if you think about it, means that MS is actually pushing users who have older stuff into using OOo. And for at least some of them, the first time they use OOo might also be the last time they use MS Office because they'll realize that they don't need to be paying Microsoft a big chunk of money for programs that don't always do what they want and that they can get a suite of programs that does what they want for free.

Re:Mind-bogglingly complex?

[deniable]

That EXE contains ADM files / Group Policy templates. It's perfect if you're running an AD domain but is not much use for individual users. Those people can get whoever does their support now to use method 2.

'Mind bogglingly complex' indicates the submitter can't be trusted with a box of crayons.

Re:Revenge

[locokamil]

Wow. Just wow.

I had to look up both Visicalc and Multiplan... apparently both were released before I was born.

Re:Thank you Microsoft...

[Marcion]

Was the Knowledge base article written by the same people who wrote the OOXML draft?

What the heck does the following mean?

> The following table contains the DWORD names and the corresponding file formats that are blocked by using the FileOpenBlock subkey:

> FilesBeforeVersion All Word files that have an nFib value that is less than the minimum nFib value as set by an administrator

My mistake.. assumed MS had some intelligence left

[foreverdisillusioned]

I just assumed that, since Office is their second most important product and OOXML is obviously a carefully constructed weapon to counter the looming threat of ODF and OSS in general, they'd have enough sense to act with some sense of... subtlety or something.

For now, they may still be king but Microsoft's market share isn't the impenetrable fortress it was in the late 90s/early 00s. OS X, Linux (Ubuntu especially), Google, Firefox (and now ODF) have made a significant, measurable impact these last few years. it seemed like they were going to take the smart route and at least FEIGN an interest in open standards/open formats (kind of like Vista feigns having *nix-type security)... instead, they're now flailing around with the ole' triple-E gauntlet (Embrace/Extend/Extinguish), and this time... it's with their own proprietary standards!? Haven't they seen enough backlash to realize this is only going to hurt them in the long run? Is ANYONE at all looking beyond their next quarterly earnings report?

I guess I simply overestimated the overall sanity and intelligence of those in charge. Cue the Ballmer-chair jokes... they're juvenile, but really, what else is there to say?

Re:Typical MS "Planned Obselescence"

[Vellmont]

Given that Apple seem to end support after 6-7 years, and there's no evidence that any OSS offering will extend support that far back, why is there suddenly an outcry with Microsoft stopping support file formats which are now over a decade old?

A whole decade eh?

I'm not sure what file format OSS and Apple have dropped that are older than 1997. But just off the top of my head I'd guess that plain old ascii format with CR/LF is 25 years old at least. GIF is more than 20 years old. There's plenty of OSS, closed source software, even Microsoft software that supports these formats.

Your excuse that these formats are "over a decade old" is pretty lame. Do you really think people don't have old files they want to read 5-10 years later?

Re:Mod parent up!

[bhtooefr]

Unless it's buffer overflows...

But, the first macro viruses were on Word 6.0, which is allowed!

Re:Mod parent up!

[blincoln]

It's not even executable data, for pete's sake!

A lot of older Office file formats (and MS file formats in general, at least in my experience) are basically partial memory dumps. So yes, I can imagine it would be pretty hard to even come close to guaranteeing that opening all of the decrepit old files stored in those formats would be safe.

Re:Thank you Microsoft...

[MightyYar]

When Apple releases an "update" that reduces functionality, they get called on it here.

Precedent?

[hadaso]

> ... the precedent is well worth bitching about.

I have an original WIN98 disk, and everything that came with it, including the original PC it came own. Several years ago I had to reformat the HD and reinstall WIN98. It was not the first time I did it. After instalation the usual thing to do is to install all the available security updates. The way they designed WIN98 is that there was an "automatic update" feature that did it. It was advertised as an important element in the OS. However when MS stopped supporting this OS they not only stopped providing new updates, security or no. They also removed all the old ones from the automatic updates site, replacing the functionality with a message that says they no longer support this product. So you're stuck with the original 1998 that cannot be updated with all the security updates that were produced until they dropped support. Well... it's not that you cannot get the updates: you can download all the hundreds of updates produced over the years as individual files, then manually install them one by one, if you know what you're doing. So I thought there must be a way to get all of them bundled in one file. I called M$. I was identified as their customer (I did send in the registration card: the one that said "Do you want to know who the most important person is at microsoft? (flip page) It you! The customer!") Well, I was on file, they know I have WIN98, they don't have any other way to provide the udates to WIN98 except by hundreds of individual files, but they offered to sell me an upgrade to WinXP for the full price.

So this is certainly not the first time they remove functionality from their products. They could leave the WIN98 update site in the state it was on the last day they still supported the product. Or they could pack all the updated so one could get them in one installer file if one needed to reinstall the OS. They chose to remove the automatic update functionality and push anyone who needs to reinstall to original 1998 version with no updates (except for a few made manually if one really needs them).

I didn't get XP for that machine. It was not strong enough for XP, and I saw no reason to pay for an OS that would eventually be made dysfunctional by the vendor who believes that end of support means also removal of all past updates. I have WIN98 partially installed on that PC. "partially" means the OS is installed, but no drivers and no apps are. Like all Windows installations several hours of shoving various vendor CDs in and out are needed to make it useful, and puting in a lightweight liveCDE Linux distro takes much less time ...

Re:Thank you Microsoft...

[Haeleth]

Ultimately this is another nail in the coffin for MS for it proves that you can't use ANY MS Office file format for reliable long term storage unless you are prepared to walk the MS Upgrade Treadmill.

Or, you know, just follow the instructions in the KB article.

But the real issue is that most of the world apparently is prepared to walk the MS Upgrade Treadmill. Most of the world appears not even to be aware that there's any alternative... look at all the people complaining about the way they think Microsoft is going to "make" them upgrade to Vista. You and I may know better, but that doesn't alter the fact that most people don't.

With a serious credit-crunch looming, I suspect that more and more people will be having a long hard look at cheaper, reliable office alternatives.

With a serious credit crunch looming, I suspect that decision-makers will continue to drink up Microsoft's TCO advertising, and continue to reject any suggestion of switching to a cheaper alternative. After all, Microsoft-funded studies have "proven" that even completely free software is more expensive than Office, haven't they? Who's going to risk the massive expense of switching to OpenOffice.org when there's a credit crunch looming?

Don't get me wrong. I hate MS Office and go to extraordinary lengths to avoid using it whenever possible. But I'm not so deluded as to imagine I'm anything but unusual in this. Yeah, maybe this is another nail in Microsoft's coffin... but there's not much point nailing up a coffin when its supposed occupant is still walking round outside, is there?