[There's a reason that Yoda is the unofficial mascot of SBS. Size indeed matters not.] Default Save as DOC and XLS - THE OFFICIAL BLOG OF THE SBS "DIVA"
Sat, Jul 14 2007 23:23 bradley

Default Save as DOC and XLS

http://technet2.microsoft.com/Office/en-us/library/07946c8e-9311-42a6-979b-5bc89afb7a661033.mspx?mfr=true

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;816662

Our goal is to make it so that when we go into Word or Excel 2007 that we save as .doc and .xls.  To save as the newer format will
a. Freak out the Attorneys still running Word Perfect for DOS
b. We're not quite ready to flip everyone over to the new format

So we fire up the GPMC and do the following:

1.  First we download the new ADM templates http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=92D8519A-E143-4AEE-8F7A-E4BBAEBA13E7&displaylang=en

2.  We then went into the Group Policy Management console and started a new policy.

3.  We then edit the policy and right mouse click on Administrative template to get to the part where you can add new ADM files.

And we can see the policies we already have on the system:

As you can see we have pretty basic group policy templates here and we have not added the Office 2003 once... so we click on that add button

 

And then we browse over to where we saved those Office 2007 ADM policy templates... and oh... lets just suck them all in shall we? 

Okay...so maybe sucking them all in wasn't such a good idea.. that's a lot of templates...so let's find Word and Excel because those are the two in particular that we want to "save as DOC" and "save as XLS"

And there you can see that there's a new setting for saving as an XLS as a default

 

And for Word, again we can specify exactly the format we want as a default.  That doesn't mean someone can't save in the new DOCX format, just that the normal default save will automagically save it as a .doc file.

 

Now I'm not sure if this is normal? But when you look at the Group policy management console resulting GP view... it says it can't read it properly.  I "think" it's because the adm's are those new style of ADM's and like Vista you can only edit them properly from a newer box?  I guess? I'll have to investigate if my theory is correct as I'm (and yeah don't tell anyone in Big Server land I do this like this... I'm editing these policies straight on the box)

So let's test this out regardless and see if it works.

Do a test Word doc...and sure enough....

We now have a default "Save as DOC"

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# re: Default Save as DOC and XLS

Sunday, July 15, 2007 1:12 PM by Tim Long

Did you consider the alternative of rolling out the compatibility add-on for older versions of Office? That enables older versions of Office to both read and write the new OpenXML formats. Of course you would still potentially have compatibility problems when sharing documents with people outside the company.

--Tim

# re: Default Save as DOC and XLS

Sunday, July 15, 2007 1:27 PM by bradley

Nope.  We need to save as .doc and .xls for compatability outside the firm.

# re: Default Save as DOC and XLS

Sunday, July 15, 2007 5:42 PM by AdamV

Actually there seem to be various bugs in these ADM files.

They are normal, old-style ADM files, not ADMX, and nothing to do with the new Vista format. In fact, it's really odd that there are no ADMX versions of these as yet.

The CPAO.adm file you are having trouble with relates to the Calendar Printing Assistant - if you are not trying to policy that then your best bet would be to not 'suck it up' in the first place along with the others.

You will almost certainly get an error with the Outlook template too - read this post on my blog about the error and the fix:

veroblog.wordpress.com/.../office-2007-group-policy-error-in-outlook-adm-file

Frankly it's very annoying that these known errors are still in the files available to download - why not release a fixed version?

# Terminally Incoherent » Blog Archive » Force Office 2007 to Save as DOC and XLS

Tuesday, July 17, 2007 1:28 PM by Terminally Incoherent » Blog Archive » Force Office 2007 to Save as DOC and XLS

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# re: Default Save as DOC and XLS

Wednesday, July 18, 2007 11:18 AM by Russ (SBITS.Biz)

I like Tims Solution.

Even though I'm the WORST person when it comes to "CHANGE"

(I still use a paper notepad for tracking phone calls)

We really need to move forward.

Yes Lawyers are the last to move forward.

(Example Electronic Signature is legal now since 2000)

And I have yet to know a lawyer to even likes this change.

But Giving them a link to install the viewer IMO would be good

Surely your "eviroment" needs to be addressed.

But the Reason I don't like to change it, is because of the future, 2008.  (What will we miss out if we don't force a change?)

I hate change, but sometimes we really do need to do the right thing.

and as you know, that's different for each client.

Example: Government Clients are the worse for change...

Russ

# re: Default Save as DOC and XLS

Wednesday, August 22, 2007 1:09 PM by ak47

The problem that I have is that when I set the default save ext to xls in office 2007, my financial program (cabs) cannot export to excel 2007 correctly..

# How to make Office 2007 always save in Office 97-2003 format

Wednesday, November 28, 2007 3:24 PM by David Overton's Blog

This is another area I get a lot of questions, so I thought I would share the answer. While my person