Travel Technology - MS Office 2007 - some questions

Grettings to the tech gurus..... please bear with me and my novice questions... :o

Im retiring my vintage ThinkPad T30 and have closed on a refurbished T43p. Digging through my original ThinkPad stuff, Ive found the original case with the original CDs and Product Key of the MS Office Software Suite which I purchased back in 2002. Its the Office XP Pro 2002 version. So then my question... I want to install Office 2007 on my new laptop.... considering I have the Original 2002 CDs, will it be enough for me to buy the upgrade of the 2007 Suite or do I have to buy the full program..??

Thanks,
Gaucho100K

You should be fine, just check this page

http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/products/FX101754511033.aspx

to make sure everything you are upgrading is OK for which version of 2007 you are installing.

It may ask you to insert the CD when doing the install to verify you have the old version

Which programs in MS Office do you use? For example, if all you use is Word and Excel, well you can get them both on the Office Student/Teacher version that may well be less expensive than the full suite upgrade edition.

I really HATE the newer Excel UI. BLECH.

I frequently query in Excel though ODBC connections. Before I could return to MS Query simply by right clicking in my data and choosing Edit Query.

I just finally figured out how to do that same feature in Excel 2007 so I agree the UI sucks and I'm not a big fan of the "Ribbon"...but I still keep my Vista in the "Windows Classic" start menu too.

I frequently query in Excel though ODBC connections. Before I could return to MS Query simply by right clicking in my data and choosing Edit Query.

I just finally figured out how to do that same feature in Excel 2007 so I agree the UI sucks and I'm not a big fan of the "Ribbon"...but I still keep my Vista in the "Windows Classic" start menu too.For $30 you could try this:

http://www.addintools.com/english/menuoffice/default.htm

And there's a 15-day free trial. I'm going to try it when I know I'll have intensive use of my Office 2007 on my home 'puter. (At work it's Office 2003.)

I added Search Commands (http://blog.protonassociates.com/2008/05/searching-for-office-solutions.html) to my Office 2007 installs and it meets my needs for finding things that are otherwise "missing." For folks who are Office 2003 keyboard fanatics you can also still use the old keyboard shortcuts. They don't drop down the menus but the key combination does the same thing. So Alt-V, Z, 2 will zoom to 200%.

And after a couple days of using it I really have decided that I love the ribbon. I find that things actually are more intuitive.

Thanks very much for the replies.

A follow up issue.... Ive just checked the "about" tab in my MS Word and I have the 2003 version of Office installed. Is it possible that the Automatic Updates from MS that Ive downloaded over the years have upgraded me to Office 2003...? Ive had this laptop for so long that I cant remember what the exact update history is.

Thanks.

Thanks very much for the replies.

A follow up issue.... Ive just checked the "about" tab in my MS Word and I have the 2003 version of Office installed. Is it possible that the Automatic Updates from MS that Ive downloaded over the years have upgraded me to Office 2003...? Ive had this laptop for so long that I cant remember what the exact update history is.

Thanks.

Nope. The Auto Updates will not upgrade it. I still use Office XP (2002) on one laptop and it has never upgraded itself through the updates.

Nope. The Auto Updates will not upgrade it. I still use Office XP (2002) on one laptop and it has never upgraded itself through the updates.

This is true. However, don't worry - your older CD will work just fine as an original for buying the upgrade to 2007.