Just like Windows Vista has a considerably different interface as compared with Windows XP, similarly Office 2007 has completely different interface than Office 2003. Office 2007 does not have the traditional Menu bars and Menu options but has new Ribbons for various tasks and each ribbon has icons for various tasks depending upon their category. Though 2007 is far more feature rich and advanced version of Office but still people might find it difficult to work with and would want to remove it and install the old Office 2003 suit on their computers. Office suit is just like any other application and its installation and un-installation can be done the same way through control panel, but the only difference is that Office is a Microsoft product and it embeds itself very deep into the system when we install it. If we remove it, it is quite possible that some of the core files might remain in the hard drive and then it will be difficult for any previous version of Office to get installed or to work properly. As a precaution the un-installation should always be complete and should not leave any traces behind. Given below are the ways to completely remove Microsoft Office 2007 and install Microsoft Office 2003 on any computer.
The easiest way to Remove Office 2007 is from the Programs and Features window of control panel and if you are on Windows XP then from the Add or Remove Programs in control Panel. Let us start the removal process by clicking on Start and then opening control Panel. In control Panel look for Programs and Fetaures (in Vista) or Add or Remove Programs (in XP) and double click to open it. In this window you will find all the applications installed on your computer. Scroll and locate the application titled Microsoft Office 2007. Select it and click on Uninstall. It will invoke the Installer which will remove the suit from your computer. Restart your computer and install Office 2003 from the installation file or disk just like any other application. If the installation goes fine then you are all set but if installation of office 2003 aborts with an error stating “ A newer version of office is already installed”, then you need to remove the Office 2007 manually and the steps are given below.
Click on Start menu and then open the Run box. In Run box type Installer and press enter. You will get an explorer window in front of you listing all the MSI files. Go to view option and change the view to Detail. You would also need to add a column for Subject in the columns of detailed view. Now in the Subject Column look for “Microsoft Office <product name> 2007 and then right click on the particular MSI and select uninstall. Follow this steps for all the MSI files which have Microsoft Office 2007 written in the subject column. After doing this Open Services.Msc from the Run box and stop the service called “Office Source Engine”. Close the services window after stopping this service. After this manually delete the office files from the Program Files directory. Office 2007 files are located in Program Files in a folder named Office 12. You can delete the entire Office12 folder. After deleting these folders we need to delete the Office 2007 registry keys. Please take a backup of entire registry before you start deleting anything from it. The entry which you have to delete is: HKey_Current_User\Software\Microsoft\Office\12.0
After deleting this key restart your computer and begin with the installation of Office 2003 which should complete successfuly this time.
