Installing multiple versions of Word on a single computer

As a trainer and a writer of training manuals, for me there are good reasons to have three versions of Word available, Word 2003, 2007 and 2010. If you are documenting something you may need screen shots, and when answering student enquiries you may need to test something on any of the versions. I have achieved this by maintaining "generational" computers, XP and 2003, Windows 7 and 2007, and Windows 7 and 2010. (I can see no reason for anyone to keep Vista).

If you need to install several versions on a single machine, apparently you can. There are some instructions for parallel installations, but it does seem to be a bit fiddly.

For those who want to install 2007 and 2010 side by side, here are some good instructions. http://www.mydigitallife.info/2009/09/02/how-to-install-office-2010-and-keep-office-2007-side-by-side-together/.

For those who want to run lots of old versions up to 2007, you will find information here.http://support.microsoft.com/kb/928091. This only goes as far as 2007 but a discussion elsewhere seems to indicate that you can just add 2010 onto the end of this.

However, there are few reasons for the average user to keep two let alone three versions running. 2010 is vastly better in every way than 2007, and is totally robust (in my experience) with opening and saving files to 98/2003 file formats. So there is simply no need, unless you are doing something unusual or super complex.

For those upgrading and afraid of Word 2010 you can see my books here. Just commit the time to learning it and you will love it. 
http://stores.lulu.com/christinekent 

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