7 ms·

I was impressed when I upgraded an old Win7 system and Office 2007 still worked on W10. Makes me wonder what the oldest version of Office is that would still wo

I was impressed when I upgraded an old Win7 system and Office 2007 still worked on W10. Makes me wonder what the oldest version of Office is that would still work. There are a lot of things to not like about Microsoft, but their dedication to backwards compatibility is great.

lima 7y ago
Has its downsides, though - one of the reasons Active Directory has been (and still is) so insecure out of the box is backwards compatibility with an ecosystem of shitty third party vendor solutions. Sometimes, change is good, even if it's painful in the short term.
- jplayer01 7y ago
  I'm sure. I still much prefer Microsoft's model over Apple's, even if there are some drawbacks.
fouronnes3 7y ago
Reminds me of that time when they fixed a buffer overflow in the ancient Office Equation Editor by manually patching the binary because they lost the source code: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2017/11/microsoft-patches-equation-editor-flaw-without-fixing-the-source-code/ https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2017/11/microsoft-patches-eq...
- jplayer01 7y ago
  Wow, that's impressive.
- Kipters 7y ago
  Are are more explanations for the manual patch than losing the source code though: why spend days/weeks setting up a 20-year old dev and build environment when a two-byte patch does the trick?
- mrpippy 7y ago
  It’s worth noting that a patch around 2 months later removed the Equation Editor entirely, because more security issues were found and binary patching wasn’t going to be sufficient.
- ohlookabird 7y ago
  Oh that reminds me of learning some assembler by writing cracks to shareware programs to patch away test period warnings, license key checks, etc. using a disassembler (w32dasm I believe) on the binary executable. That was a fun learning experience, helped a 14 year old to use software he otherwise couldn't buy (me) and helped understanding quite a few internals of binaries.
  - anticensor 7y ago
    Some binaries are obfuscated by overlapping several routines together.
    - saagarjha 7y ago
      Oh, there's a bunch of ways you can try to make reverse engineering harder, but I don't think these techniques are really that common for most software.
mehrdadn 7y ago
What actually impresses me there isn't that Office 2007 is still compatible with Windows 10 (I mean it does impress me, but I'm used to it by now), but rather the fact that a program like office doesn't break after an upgrade -- and I mean that from the perspective of the OS upgrade. Upgrading the whole OS underneath my programs and having them still work fine is just not something I ever expect on any OS, and it was quite unexpected the first time I saw it happen on Windows.
- Zardoz84 7y ago
  You should try to upgrade a Linux machine. Not only keeps working before the upgrade. It allows you to WORK meanwhile the whole OS is upgrading! Shit! I was playing Stellaris meanwhile I was updating to Kubuntu 18.10
  - AnIdiotOnTheNet 7y ago
    Sure, sometimes, maybe. But pretty much only if you've only ever used software from the main repo and of course not anything they've dropped between versions. I've had plenty of Linux upgrades break stuff. Not just programs, but core functionality. Linux Desktop has pretty much the opposite compatibility story to Windows.
  - mehrdadn 7y ago
    > You should try to upgrade a Linux machine. I have! > Not only keeps working before the upgrade. It allows you to WORK meanwhile the whole OS is upgrading! Yeah, and then it breaks and trashes my install after the upgrade. Happened to me many times.
  - icedchai 7y ago
    Yeah, then you reboot and find out what's really broken. About 30% of the time there's some weird problem. Last time, my Nvidia drivers weren't upgraded and my laptop's external display stopped working. Server upgrades are usually smooth (early versions of Ubuntu being an exception.)
  - munchbunny 7y ago
lbruder 7y ago
I think I still have an old copy of Office 95 at home. Gotta try that with Win10 just for shits and giggles...
- jplayer01 7y ago
  Report back, I'd love to know.
- epse 7y ago
  Works just fine. It's legitimately the setup everyone at my house uses (except for me). We have a legit license for it, and it works just fine, so why not
userbinator 7y ago
You shouldn't be impressed that existing apps continue to work, since that's the norm for Microsoft. It's all the other things they changed around and the subtly added "telemetry" spyware that should get your attention more. ;-) Office 95 can run on Win10, with only a little difficulty: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mRfn4M5DXTE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mRfn4M5DXTE
- jplayer01 7y ago
  > It's all the other things they changed around and the subtly added "telemetry" spyware that should get your attention more. ;-) As if that isn't already discussed to death around here or elsewhere. I see far more disdain for Microsoft than I do any praise at all. And while I'm not particularly happy with Microsoft either, I'm still able to appreciate the good things that they do.
2ion 7y ago
You say it nonchalantly but I'd think twice if it wouldn't work anymore if I'd upgrade (at all). Buying new full versions of Office is not very cheap.
Ry4N4ejc-9K_ZfQ 7y ago
I have Office 2002 on my Windows 10 desktop. I don't use them often, but Word and Excel still work. The only issue (I can't remember if this affected me on older windows versions) is that it sometimes crashes when you close it and tries to restart.

lima 7y ago

Has its downsides, though - one of the reasons Active Directory has been (and still is) so insecure out of the box is backwards compatibility with an ecosystem of shitty third party vendor solutions. Sometimes, change is good, even if it's painful in the short term.

jplayer01 7y ago
I'm sure. I still much prefer Microsoft's model over Apple's, even if there are some drawbacks.

fouronnes3 7y ago

Reminds me of that time when they fixed a buffer overflow in the ancient Office Equation Editor by manually patching the binary because they lost the source code: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2017/11/microsoft-patches-equation-editor-flaw-without-fixing-the-source-code/ https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2017/11/microsoft-patches-eq...

jplayer01 7y ago
Wow, that's impressive.
Kipters 7y ago
Are are more explanations for the manual patch than losing the source code though: why spend days/weeks setting up a 20-year old dev and build environment when a two-byte patch does the trick?
mrpippy 7y ago
It’s worth noting that a patch around 2 months later removed the Equation Editor entirely, because more security issues were found and binary patching wasn’t going to be sufficient.
ohlookabird 7y ago
Oh that reminds me of learning some assembler by writing cracks to shareware programs to patch away test period warnings, license key checks, etc. using a disassembler (w32dasm I believe) on the binary executable. That was a fun learning experience, helped a 14 year old to use software he otherwise couldn't buy (me) and helped understanding quite a few internals of binaries.
- anticensor 7y ago
  Some binaries are obfuscated by overlapping several routines together.
  - saagarjha 7y ago
    Oh, there's a bunch of ways you can try to make reverse engineering harder, but I don't think these techniques are really that common for most software.

mehrdadn 7y ago

What actually impresses me there isn't that Office 2007 is still compatible with Windows 10 (I mean it does impress me, but I'm used to it by now), but rather the fact that a program like office doesn't break after an upgrade -- and I mean that from the perspective of the OS upgrade. Upgrading the whole OS underneath my programs and having them still work fine is just not something I ever expect on any OS, and it was quite unexpected the first time I saw it happen on Windows.

Zardoz84 7y ago
You should try to upgrade a Linux machine. Not only keeps working before the upgrade. It allows you to WORK meanwhile the whole OS is upgrading! Shit! I was playing Stellaris meanwhile I was updating to Kubuntu 18.10
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 7y ago
  Sure, sometimes, maybe. But pretty much only if you've only ever used software from the main repo and of course not anything they've dropped between versions. I've had plenty of Linux upgrades break stuff. Not just programs, but core functionality. Linux Desktop has pretty much the opposite compatibility story to Windows.
- mehrdadn 7y ago
  > You should try to upgrade a Linux machine. I have! > Not only keeps working before the upgrade. It allows you to WORK meanwhile the whole OS is upgrading! Yeah, and then it breaks and trashes my install after the upgrade. Happened to me many times.
- icedchai 7y ago
  Yeah, then you reboot and find out what's really broken. About 30% of the time there's some weird problem. Last time, my Nvidia drivers weren't upgraded and my laptop's external display stopped working. Server upgrades are usually smooth (early versions of Ubuntu being an exception.)
- munchbunny 7y ago

lbruder 7y ago

I think I still have an old copy of Office 95 at home. Gotta try that with Win10 just for shits and giggles...

jplayer01 7y ago
Report back, I'd love to know.
epse 7y ago
Works just fine. It's legitimately the setup everyone at my house uses (except for me). We have a legit license for it, and it works just fine, so why not

userbinator 7y ago

You shouldn't be impressed that existing apps continue to work, since that's the norm for Microsoft. It's all the other things they changed around and the subtly added "telemetry" spyware that should get your attention more. ;-) Office 95 can run on Win10, with only a little difficulty: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mRfn4M5DXTE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mRfn4M5DXTE

jplayer01 7y ago
> It's all the other things they changed around and the subtly added "telemetry" spyware that should get your attention more. ;-) As if that isn't already discussed to death around here or elsewhere. I see far more disdain for Microsoft than I do any praise at all. And while I'm not particularly happy with Microsoft either, I'm still able to appreciate the good things that they do.

2ion 7y ago

You say it nonchalantly but I'd think twice if it wouldn't work anymore if I'd upgrade (at all). Buying new full versions of Office is not very cheap.

Ry4N4ejc-9K_ZfQ 7y ago

I have Office 2002 on my Windows 10 desktop. I don't use them often, but Word and Excel still work. The only issue (I can't remember if this affected me on older windows versions) is that it sometimes crashes when you close it and tries to restart.