Vista Operating System vs. Microsoft 2007 Suite

I recently had a client send me the following issue and since most of my clients will be updating their computers over the next few years, I thought this might be a valuable post to help explain a few things.

Question about Vista was the subject of this clients email.

"When I send a Word doc attachment to anyone it says name.docx and no one can open it. Do you have any ideas about how to fix this or is this a MS plot to convert everyone more quickly?"

My Answer:

This actually is not a VISTA issue, it is a Microsoft Word 2007 Issue.

It is important for you to know that you have Vista for your Operating System and you are using 2007 for your Microsoft Suite (which includes word, excel, PowerPoint, etc).
SO, when you save ANY of these files, you will need to SAVE DOWN.

To do this, when you are ready to SAVE your document, you must do “File”, “Save AS” (rather than just SAVE). You cannot use the save icon (the one that looks like a floppy disk), because you must “SAVE AS”.

When the save as box pops up, right below where you would type in the name, you will see a drop down box. You must select the option that says Word 97-2003 Document. (See below)

You need to follow these procedures every time you save a new document in any of the Microsoft Suite documents.

While there was some chatter before 2007 came out that you would not be able to "save down a version", it has proved to be inaccurate, or maybe Microsoft just got the hint and added this feature at the last minute. Regardless, it is sometimes a pain to remember to save down, at least we have this option.