Skip to main content

Force file format in Office via GPO.

When in the process of upgrading from Office 2003 to Office 2007, the file types for Word, Excel, and PowerPoint change. This will result in your Office 2003 users not being able to open the documents from the 2007 version. There are two mitigations for this issue.

The first one is to deploy the Office 2007 Compatibility Pack to your Office 2003 users. This will allow your Office 2003 users to load and save documents in the new 2007 format. You can get a copy of the Office 2007 Compatibility pack from here: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=941b3470-3ae9-4aee-8f43-c6bb74cd1466&displaylang=en

The second option is to force your Office 2007 users to save all files in the Office 2003 format. You can do this during deployment using the Office Customization Toolkit, or by using Group Policy. By using Group Policy, you can more easily reverse this option once all clients have been upgraded to Office 2007.
The first step is to download the Office 2007 Administrative Templates for Group Policy Manager. You can download them here: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=73d955c0-da87-4bc2-bbf6-260e700519a8&displaylang=en


Once you add the administrative templates into your GPO, follow these instructions:
  • In the left pane of the Group Policy Management Console, double-click User Configuration and double-click Administrative Templates (Classic Administrative Templates (ADM) in Windows Vista).
  • To change default file save options in Office Excel 2007:
  • Double-click Microsoft Office Excel 2007, double-click Excel Options, and click Save.
  • In the right pane, right-click Save Excel files as, and selects Properties.
  • In Save files in this format, select Enabled.
  • In the drop-down box, select a default file save format.
  • Click Apply to save the settings.
  • To change default file save options in Office PowerPoint 2007:
  • Double-click Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2007, double-click PowerPoint Options, and click Save.
  • In the right pane, right-click Save files in this format, and select Properties.
  • In Save files in this format, select Enabled.
  • In the drop-down box, select a default file save format.
  • Click Apply to save the settings.
  • To change default file save options in Office Word 2007:
  • Double-click Microsoft Office Word 2007, double-click Word Options, and click Save.
  • In the right pane, right-click Save files in this format, and select Properties.
  • In Save files in this format, select Enabled.
  • In the drop-down box, select a default file save format.
  • Click Apply to save the settings.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Adding a Comment to a GPO with PowerShell

As I'm writing this article, I'm also writing a customization for a PowerShell course I'm teaching next week in Phoenix.  This customization deals with Group Policy and PowerShell.  For those of you who attend my classes may already know this, but I sit their and try to ask the questions to myself that others may ask as I present the material.  I finished up my customization a few hours ago and then I realized that I did not add in how to put a comment on a GPO.  This is a feature that many Group Policy Administrators may not be aware of. This past summer I attended a presentation at TechEd on Group Policy.  One organization in the crowd had over 5,000 Group Policies.  In an environment like that, the comment section can be priceless.  I always like to write in the comment section why I created the policy so I know its purpose next week after I've completed 50 other tasks and can't remember what I did 5 minutes ago. In the Group Policy module for PowerShell V3, th

Return duplicate values from a collection with PowerShell

If you have a collection of objects and you want to remove any duplicate items, it is fairly simple. # Create a collection with duplicate values $Set1 = 1 , 1 , 2 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 , 6 , 7 , 1 , 2   # Remove the duplicate values. $Set1 | Select-Object -Unique 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 What if you want only the duplicate values and nothing else? # Create a collection with duplicate values $Set1 = 1 , 1 , 2 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 , 6 , 7 , 1 , 2   #Create a second collection with duplicate values removed. $Set2 = $Set1 | Select-Object -Unique   # Return only the duplicate values. ( Compare-Object -ReferenceObject $Set2 -DifferenceObject $Set1 ) . InputObject | Select-Object – Unique 1 2 This works with objects as well as numbers.  The first command creates a collection with 2 duplicates of both 1 and 2.   The second command creates another collection with the duplicates filtered out.  The Compare-Object cmdlet will first find items that are diffe

How to list all the AD LDS instances on a server

AD LDS allows you to provide directory services to applications that are free of the confines of Active Directory.  To list all the AD LDS instances on a server, follow this procedure: Log into the server in question Open a command prompt. Type dsdbutil and press Enter Type List Instances and press Enter . You will receive a list of the instance name, both the LDAP and SSL port numbers, the location of the database, and its status.