Microsoft Word

It can be found here, although your automatic updates should have installed it years ago!

https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/download/details.aspx?id=3

I assume you did the instructed high priority updates first (did they install ok?)

However when I had to do the compatibility install recently (after loading office 2003 again on a new pc) I located the downlpad for 2007 office compatibility pack and that worked fine.

Not sure where I found it now but answers.microsoft.com has a link to http://getintopc.com/softwares/office-tools/office-compatibility-pack-free-download/

If you can't find the link, do what we do: have Word (ours is from the Office Professional 2000 suite) on your pooter and also, any one of the freebie word processors out there. Most of them will handle .docx files and none of them are big downloads or heavy on resources when used.

A certain Chinese company did a thoroughly good job of exactly emulating Microsoft Word's 2000 - 2003 offerings on the basis of pure, er, coincidence. The version we have is the best of the coincidental ones; Kingsoft Writer 2013 (version 9.1.0.4550).

It's still available on the 'Net if you have a look around, and it's preferable to later Kingsoft versions which, just like Microsoft's own offering, are irritating bloatware. We don't use it a lot, but it's handy to have around when .docx drop in and a simple right click 'Open with' gets it up and running.

If you do go with any Kingsoft product though, make sure you have WinPatrol Free installed (or similar), this to disable the Kingsoft software from auto-starting with your computer.

Ainsley1 wrote: »

Find the update on that link Ben posted ^^^^ under 'details' and part way down that expanded section.....

Not sure why that particular website offer of a compatibility pack claims to work with everything from Microsoft Office 2000 onwards, because it doesn't. I've just checked it out by downloading, installing and activating, and although it said it was fully installed: guess what? I went to Microsoft Word (the word processing component of my Office 2000 Professional suite) and no way could I save any document as a .docx.

I'll stick with using two word processors -- Kingsoft's for opening the occasional .docx file -- and Word for everything else.

I purchased Office 2000 in July of 1999 and all these years later, it's as good now as it was then, with nothing like the stupid clutter that Microsoft's wannabe engineers loaded it with as time went by purely to demonstrate that if they can do it, they will. (Ribbon, huh? Yes. Right. I seem to remember the lady who oversaw that particular Redmond brilliance. . . wonder where she is now?)

I've just uninstalled.

This isn't a criticism of Ben's link, by the way. It's just that in an age when Microsoft would dearly like everyone to junk what they have and use only what Microsoft thinks they should use -- Windows 10, anyone? -- I'm happier than ever with a software suite purchased 18 years ago and, to Microsoft's chagrin, still doing fine.