Upgrading From Office 2003.

COMPUTER SUPPORT Tips from the Gonzales, LA Computer Pro –Upgrading From Office 2003.

It’s surprising, but when providing COMPUTER SUPPORT IN GONZALES, LA, I see an awful lot of people who simply haven’t upgraded from Microsoft Office 2003… whether to Office 2007, or to Office 2010.

Many longtime Office users were confused and distressed by the new “ribbon” interface, and simply avoided upgrading… and when those users also happened to be in charge of software licensing for an office, entire companies were left on Office 2003 for several years after they should have upgraded.

One of the more useful reasons to upgrade now is that Office 2007, being the “previous” version of Office at present, is actually a great deal less expensive. If the objections were financial, owing to the cost of upgrading so many people at once, upgrading to Office 2007 is a lot easier on your budget while still providing many of the new features added since Office 2003.

Another key reason is that the new “ribbon” interface, while it takes several weeks to become accustomed to it, really is easier and more intuitive to use – as someone providing COMPUTER SUPPORT IN GONZALES LOUISIANA, I frequently need to create reports in Office, and once you get past the initial shock of using the newer versions (it took me a little over a month) you’ll probably find that the old versions of Office have become hopelessly difficult to use. I certainly did.

Finally, the newer versions of Office are lighter on system resources than Office 2003 – the memory management systems within each application are much improved, especially under Vista and Windows 7, and often provide performance much improved over Office 2003… especially on older and less-beefy machines.

Providing IT SUPPORT IN GONZALES LOUISIANA has shown me many times that system upgrades are often foregone simply because the computer is old, and there are concerns that the newer versions of software will not run on the system that needs upgrading. For Office 2007 and 2010, at least, these concerns are largely unfounded – most computers which can run Office 2003 are capable of running the newer versions much faster and more reliably.

In short, while it may be a little scary to think about moving to the new versions of Office, putting off the upgrade any longer is just going to make future upgrades more difficult. It’s worth taking the plunge, if only because waiting isn’t going to make it any easier, and the sooner you start adjusting – the sooner you’ll adjust.

PHILLIP SINGLETARY is a provider of professional COMPUTER SUPPORT IN GONZALES LA. If you need IT SUPPORT for your small business, please contact us at SALES@LATECHNOLOGYSOLUTIONS.COM

Comments are closed.

Sign up for our mailing list.


  • The Open Source Dilemma April 8, 2011
    The Open Source Dilemma In recent years, it has become common for many people to tout open source products and technologies for anything and everything in the modern business, and it often sounds too good to be true. While these products and technologies clearly have benefits, are there drawbacks, and how serious are they? Like […]
  • Choosing ASP or PHP for Your Web Site April 5, 2011
    Choosing ASP or PHP for Your Web Site When putting together a corporate web site, one of the biggest decisions in the planning process is which technology to use for it. The two most popular options are ASP and PHP, but choosing one or the other can often be a chore. Providing COMPUTER SUPPORT IN […]
  • Does CPU Speed Still Matter? March 31, 2011
    COMPUTER SUPPORT Tips from the Gonzales Louisiana Computer Pro – Does CPU Speed Still Matter? If you’ve been using computers long enough, you remember when it was very important how fast your CPU clock speed was. Indeed, the early Intel CPUs were graded directly by clock speed, and it was pretty simple to figure out […]
  • Password Security – COMPUTER SUPPORT Tips from the GONZALES, LOUISIANA Computer Pro March 29, 2011
    COMPUTER SUPPORT Tips from the GONZALES, LOUISIANA Computer Pro – Password Security As someone providing COMPUTER SUPPORT GONZALES, LOUISIANA, I commonly find that people are using insecure, easily-guessed passwords. The most frequent explanation is that the password is “easy to remember.” The trouble, of course, is that passwords which are easy to remember […]
  • COMPUTER SUPPORT Tips from the GONZALES, LA Computer Pro – Custom or Off-The-Shelf? March 25, 2011
    COMPUTER SUPPORT Tips from the GONZALES, LA Computer Pro – Custom or Off-The-Shelf? A common question we encounter while providing COMPUTER SUPPORT IN GONZALES LOUISIANA is whether to custom-build systems from parts. The basic idea is that if you start from the level of parts, you can design a system which is better suited to […]