Open Office and Windows 7 64-bit Compatibility

Is Open Office compatible with Windows 7 64-bit?

Are there any special installation procedures one must follow, such as "run
as administrator", install as Vista or Windows XP, etc.?

As a long time user of Office 2000, what's the learning curve like in
transitioning to Open Office?

Any additional insights would be greatly appreciated.

Open Office runs fine on Windows 7 x64. If you are an Office power user OO
id probably not for you. For most people it is an excellent competitor to
Microsoft Office. As it's free to try there's no downside to seeing if it
works for you. Personally I'm using Office 2010 beta which is also free for
the beta period.

Ken, Thanks for your response. Based on that I have a few additional
questions before I venture installation.

Currently on my new HP Notebook, running Windows 7 64-bit, I have Works 9.0
which was preinstalled by HP. I find Works to be more limited than I like
especially in the area of spreadsheets.

QUESTIONS:

Does the OO spreadsheet allow for multiple worksheets in a file, with
"linking" between worksheets and/or files?

Does the OO spreadsheet allow for formatting of Headers & Footers? Can't
seem to do this in Works 9.0.

Formatting in Works 9.0 Word Processor seems to require saving additional
templates.
Does OO allow for "default format settings" in the (for lack of a better
phrase) "main or default" OO new document, as was the case in Office 2000?

I have a simple database file that I originally setup in Access 2000. This
is just a simple list of books read over time. I was successful in
converting this to Works 9.0 but again find formatting to be somewhat
cumbersome. (This may just be a Works 9.0 "newbie" issue).
If I install OO, will I be able to convert this database file from Works 9.0
to OO?

What is the scheduled "release date" for Office 2010?

Will Office 2010 offer a suite that contains Word, Excel and Access, without
Outlook?
I'm using WLM for my email application with ISP email accounts and it seems
to meet my email needs plus it allows me newsgroup access.
When I had Office 2000, I needed Outlook for mail and Outlook Express for
newsgroups.

Since I have a number of Office 2000 and now Works 9.0 files, will I be able
to convert ALL of them to Office 2010 without "major" complications?

What are you seeing as the biggest improvements or sacrifices between Office
2010 and Office 2000? It seems from monitoring various Microsoft newsgroups
and communities that they tend to remove some functionality previously
provided in their new applications and operating systems while adding some
new functionality.

Depending on the responses, I may just wait of Office 2010, provided that it
isn't too long of a wait. I dislike installing and uninstalling applications
because it seems that you always leave behind debris form registry entries
to useless folders. I'm not "techie" enough to venture into the registry,
(I've learned the hard way) and I've never found a "registry cleaner", free
or paid, that I trust. I only have one computer and I don't want to risk
doing things that require a complete system recovery to fix. I've been
there, done that too many times. It's not fun and very time consuming.

I hope that you don't mind all of the questions.

You probably want to ask the OO related questions in an OpenOffice
forum. Something like http://user.services.openoffice.org/en/forum/

I've looked through your OO questions and found that what you want to do
is most likely easily possible with OpenOffice.

If you do not want to disturb your system, try OpenOffice Portable. Just
install it into any path on your system. It will not change any registry
entry. You can later on delete the directory again.

For what it's worth, I installed OpenOffice on my Win7 64-bit computer.
It installed fine and everything seemed to work, however I missed my
Office 2000 Professional, so I uninstalled OO and installed my Microsoft
Office 2000. It works perfectly, and it's nice to have my "old friend"
back. Honestly, I really only use Word and Power Point, but do dabble
with Access and Excel.

thanks for your response. This is "potential" very good news for me. I
have a few questions before I jump in however.

1. What, if any, compatibility mode did you use to install Office 2000
Professional?

2. Did you install via "run as administrator"?

2. It's my understanding that Outlook won't work in Windows 7 64-bit.
It's been so long since I installed Office 2000 Professional on my old
system, I don't remember if you can elect not to install Outlook in the
custom installation or not. Do you know if that's possible? I really don't
need Outlook because I now use WLM and very satisfied with it.

I'll probably look at Office 2010 when it's released but in the meantime, I
also miss the "old friend".

Yes, running it here.

Like any other installer, you'll get a UAC prompt if you don't "Run As
Administrator".

For standard tasks, I expect that many would not even notice they'd
changed application. It's high-level and expert users (who do things like
learn keyboard shortcuts) that would be likely to be aware of the
differences.

A new blank document has "Sheet1", "Sheet2" and "Sheet3" tabs, just like
Excel. Typing an "=" into a cell on Sheet2, I can then click on Sheet1 and
select a cell, and go back to Sheet2, and it's added "Sheet1.A3" to the
formula.

There's a Headers & Footers section on the Edit menu, so I'd say probably.

They haven't in the past, so probably not.
As long as the files are in the latest format supported by those
applications, or are saved to lowest-common-denominator formats (CSV,
TXT), I wouldn't expect much in the way of problems. You might get some
reformatting going on, but that's about it.

I don't know about Outlook 2000, but Outlook 2003 32-bit works fine on
Win7 Pro x64.

I simply put in the CD and installed it. I don't remember if it asked
about administrator mode, this step has become pretty automatic for me.

It isn't running in any "mode," it works as is, so to speak.

I haven't tried Outlook as I don't use it for my E-Mail.

We have Office 2010 at work. I'm discovering how to make it do things
that were easy with Office 2000 (at home) and Office 2003 (at work). The
change was done for company-wide compatibility, but you should have hard
the complaints about not being able to make this or that work. It's
simply a matter of getting used to a new product; it takes time.

At the moment, I'm in Safe Mode thanks to a dying hard drive...

In my opinion, I truly believe that Office 2000 and FrontPage 2000 were the simplest, cleanest and easiest to install and uninstall compared to 2003 to 2010.

I will never give-up either 2000 product until the day comes that Windows OS will not install them. Even if servers drop FrontPage extensions, one can still create an excellent web page with FP2000 then upload it via FTP.

When it came to office and publishing software, Microsoft got it right during the "com rush" in the late 90s to 2002. Everthing else since then has too many bells and whistles for the average computer user.

I too, only use Word and PowerPoint 2000.