🚀 go-pugleaf

rudd@mindspring.com (Justin Rudd) wrote:
>[snip]
>
>>Yeah, Microsoft is so great.  Their own programs are not even compatable
>>with themselves.  I use Word v6 and v2.  I have to use v2 on my notebook
>>because 6.0 is so big.  I have to be very careful file formats because 
2.0
>>won't read 6.0's files.  I guess they do this to try to force you into
>>buying a new version, weather you want to or not.

Note that they can't force you to do anything. I used Word 2 happily for 
ages after the Word 6 version then the NT version was available. It was 
faster and less buggy than either of its successors. I only finally decided 
to upgrade to v7, to take advantage of long file names.

Microsoft has a free converter for Word 2 to let it load/save v6 files. 
Check their web site. I have used it, and it works fine.


>Yes Microsoft is GREAT.  Did you ever stop and think that the reason
>the file formats aren't the same is because in 6.0 they found a better
>way to save to the disk??  Maybe its faster or smaller..who knows but
>it is major changes like this that will not allow backwards
>compatibility for everything.  


The new file format was neither a "conspiracy", nor was it particularly 
"faster or smaller". Between v2 and v6, MS developed the OLE structured 
storage file format, and the OLE2 specs (to allow embedded documents). This 
required the new file format to become OLE DocFile compatible. So they had 
to completely switch file formats.

They recognize what a hassle it is to their customers when formats change. 
That is probably why Word 7 uses the v6 format, unchanged.

--
Brad Aisa <baisa@hookup.net>  web: http://www.hookup.net/~baisa/

1 Mises (M1.00) = 0.01 troy ounce gold; 1 Rand (1R) = 0.01 Mises

"The highest responsibility of philosophers is to serve as the
guardians and integrators of human knowledge."   -- Ayn Rand