Can Excel 2010 64bit files be saved in a format to be opened by previous 32bit version?

Question

Several questions to help me decide about going to the 64bit version (yes, my computer is capable and running 7).

1. Can Excel 2010 64bit files be saved in a format capable of being opened by previous versions of Excel 32 bit?
2. When installing Office 2010, can I only install Excel (huge calculations) and Outlook in the 64bit version and the others in 32bit version?
3. Was it a waste for me to have a 64bit system with 8gb of memory if everything is running in 32bit?

Thanking you in advance for any and all answers.

K

Answer 1

The file structure of Excel 2010 32 and 64 bit files is the same.

How much older version of Excel 32. Previous versions of Office as far back as Office 2000 can install the 'Office Compatibility Pack" to allow them to open 2010 "X" format files. When the older versions open files taht contain features that they do not support, the feature will either be stripped out or degraded into a form that the older version can handle.

You can also save files from Excel 2010 to the old 97--2003 XLS file format.

2. You definitely cannot mix 32 and 64 bit Office on the same computer. You would have to use a virtual machine to completely separate them

3.  What do you plan to do with the computer?

If you are primarily going to be doing work with Office apps, you probably don't need 8 gb of RAM.

Are you going to be working with Excel files larger than 3 GB? They REQUIRE 64 bit Office. That is almost the only reason for using 64 bit Office.

Do you plan to do any photo, video or audio editing? They all benefit from new applications that can use the extra RAM made available by 64 bit apps.

Do you plan to run LOTS of apps open at the same time, constantly switching between them, 8 GB might be useful.

How long do you hope / expect to keep the computer?

Here are links to more information than you probably want about 32 vs 64 bit Windows and Office:

32-Bit 64-Bit Explainedhttp://www.worldstart.com/32-bit-and-64-bit-explained-part-one/

http://www.worldstart.com/32-bit-and-64-bit-explained-part-two/print/

HTG Explains: What’s the Difference Between 32-bit and 64-bit Windows 7? - http://www.howtogeek.com/56701/htg-explains-whats-the-difference-between-32-bit-and-64-bit-windows-7/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=230311****

64-bit Office - is it worth the trouble? - http://news.office-watch.com/t/n.aspx?articleid=1409&zoneid=12****

• Outlook 2010 64-bit and Windows Mobile – forget it
• First official Office 2010 downloads now available
• Preparing for Office 2010 64-bit
• Office 32 and 64 bit on the same machine
• Office 32-bit or 64-bit - which version is installed?
• Installing Office 2010 64-bit
• Office 2010 - about the 64-bit version

Office 2010 Upgrade, 32 or 64 bit? - http://devonenote.com/2010/05/office-2010-upgrade-32-or-64-bit/****

14 May, 2010 | Category: Office | By: emma

Office 2010 is the first release of Office that contains 64 bit edition. It’s recommended to install the 32 bit version Office 2010 due to compatibility issues however if you still want to try 64 bit version keep these in mind.

·         32 bit version works on both 32 bit and 64 bit windows operation systems. But 64 bit version Office 2010 must be installed on 64 bit windows operation systems.

• You can’t upgrade from 32 bit Office 2007 to 64 bit Office 2010 directly, you have to uninstall existing 32 bit Office products prior to install 64 bit Office 2010. (It’s okay to upgrade Office 2007 to 32 bit Office 2010 on either 32 bit or 64 bit operation systems)
• You can’t run 64bit and 32bit office products side by side. For example, you can’t have side by side installation of 32 bit OneNote 2010 and 64 bit Outlook 2010
• Some of 32bit Office Add-Ins might not work on 64 bit Office 2010.

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Choose the 32-bit or 64-bit version of Microsoft Office - http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/word-help/choose-the-32-bit-or-64-bit-version-of-microsoft-office-HA010369476.aspx?CTT=1

64-bit Office 2010 product backup is available at http://www.office.com/backup  . However, we recommend most users install the 32-bit version of Office 2010. The 64-bit installation of Microsoft Office 2010 products are for users who commonly use very large documents or data sets and need Office 2010 programs to access greater than 2GB of memory. There are some technical limitations with the 64-bit version.

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Compatibility Between the 32-bit and 64-bit Versions of Office 2010 - http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee691831%28office.14%29.aspx

64-bit editions of Office 2010 - http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee681792.aspx

The recommendations for which edition of Office 2010 to install are as follows:

·         If users in your organization depend on existing extensions to Office, such as ActiveX controls, third-party add-ins, in-house solutions built on previous versions of Office, or 32-bit versions of programs that interface directly with Office, we recommend that you install 32-bit Office 2010 (the default installation) on computers that are running both 32-bit and 64-bit supported Windows operating systems.

• If some users in your organization are Excel expert users who work with Excel spreadsheets that are larger than 2 gigabytes (GB), they can install the 64-bit edition of Office 2010. In addition, if you have in-house solution developers, we recommend that those developers have access to the 64-bit edition of Office 2010 so that they can test and update your in-house solutions on the 64-bit edition of Office 2010.
• Side-by-side installations   No support is provided for side-by-side installations of 64-bit and 32-bit editions of Office, including across applications. For example, there is no support for side-by-side installations of the 2007 Microsoft Office system 32-bit with Office 2010 64-bit, or for Microsoft SharePoint Workspace 2010 64-bit and Microsoft Excel 2010 32-bit.

MS Office 2010 Engineering Blog - Understanding 64-bit Office -http://blogs.technet.com/b/office2010/archive/2010/02/23/understanding-64-bit-office.aspx****

Office 2010 - about the 64-bit version http://news.office-watch.com/t/n.aspx?a=1403****

Office 2010 will have a 64-bit version but don’t get too excited.

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Installing Office 2010 64-bit http://news.office-watch.com/t/n.aspx?a=1404&z=0****

How to install the 64-bit version of Office 2010.

Taking the mystery out of 64-bit Windows -http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows7/taking-the-mystery-out-of-64-bit-windows****

Office 2010 - VBA 7 and 32 Bit and 64 Bit

Microsoft made several changes to VBA in Office 2010, all of them targeted at the one major change in the Office 2010 architecture, i.e., the availability of 64-bit Office applications. This note summarizes how the changes affect developers.

Some Files suddenly read-only can’t be deleted or moved

https://mail.google.com/mail/?shva=1#label/Win+Tips%2FmsWordTips/1325f91493b11587

I am having the same problem but may have found a solution. it has worked for me. Working on a new system with Windows 7 64 bit and Office 2010 I tried changing the read only settings only to have the document open in read only no matter whether I clicked it to open or opened it within Word. I closed the document and right clicked it in the folder and selected Properties. Went to Security settings and here is where it was restricted. I changed the settings to allow all functions and now I have no more problems.  

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I seem to have found a fix also, although a different one. One of the first things I did was to look at Properties as you describe. There was nothing to do! The Read-only box was unchecked and the securithy settings were normal and exactly the same as other files that did not have this bebhavior. But unlike your situation, I did get a good result when opening within Word, which led me to notice that Preview does not happen when opening within Word.

So I have clicked on the toggle in a Windows Explorer file folder to not show the Preview Pane. Apparently this is a global change and all folders now have this setting and there is no more problem. I can open files from Windows Explorer and from within Word and the behavior is gone!

At least in my case then, I suspect some kind of bug/conflict between .doc files and the Preview function. I also note that not all .doc files had this problem. I think it has to do with older files, that is files created say a week ago or more. Those files don't always have this problem, but recently created ones do. Not sure about that because I haven't tested it enough.

But with the Preview Pane turned off, the problem is gone! At least I hope it is. So far, so good. Even files that previously had this behavior now are normal. I can always turn Preview Pane back on if I need it for a .jpg or something. I don't really need it anyway for files containing mostly text.

And I'm phasing out my .doc files and converting them to docx as I use them!

****

If the preview pane is showing, you just have to select the file without opening it and the preview shows. Once that happens, if it's a .doc file it will open read-only even though it was never saved as a read-only file in the first place. The same thing it true if you right-click in order to delete it. Once that file is selected it shows in the preview and the game is over. The properties do NOT show read-only. The security settings show no blocking of any kind, like any other files except you can't edit it, you can't move it and you can't delete it because it generates an open in Word message even though the file is closed and Word itself is closed. But if the preview panel is hidden, the next time you open the file it it normal and none of that stuff happens.

I think this is a bug pure and simple. It does not happen with .docx files, just .doc.

64-bit editions of Office 2010 - http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee681792.aspx

The recommendations for which edition of Office 2010 to install are as follows:

• If users in your organization depend on existing extensions to Office, such as ActiveX controls, third-party add-ins, in-house solutions built on previous versions of Office, or 32-bit versions of programs that interface directly with Office, we recommend that you install 32-bit Office 2010 (the default installation) on computers that are running both 32-bit and 64-bit supported Windows operating systems.
• If some users in your organization are Excel expert users who work with Excel spreadsheets that are larger than 2 gigabytes (GB), they can install the 64-bit edition of Office 2010. In addition, if you have in-house solution developers, we recommend that those developers have access to the 64-bit edition of Office 2010 so that they can test and update your in-house solutions on the 64-bit edition of Office 2010.

·         Side-by-side installations   No support is provided for side-by-side installations of 64-bit and 32-bit editions of Office, including across applications. For example, there is no support for side-by-side installations of the 2007 Microsoft Office system 32-bit with Office 2010 64-bit, or for Microsoft SharePoint Workspace 2010 64-bit and Microsoft Excel 2010 32-bit.

Answer 2

You may not see any particular increase in speed with 64-bit Windows.  There are some documented instances where processing is slower.  64-bit generally is simply to allow referencing a larger address space, not for providing any speed advantages.

Answer 3

I would like to thank everyone who has replied.  My questions have been answered and have been doing a considerable amount of reading...thanks for all the links.

There have been a few questions as to how I will be using my computer.  Larger (very large) spreadsheets, photo editing, publishing movies & online training with flash.  I need faster rendering, publishing, and calculating times.

Thanks again!!  Everyone was wonderful!

Answer 4

1. Yes, provided the attributes in the worksheet you create do not exceed the capability of Excel 32-bit.  Frankly, I don't know what 32-bit Excel would do if it tried to read an Excel 64-bit-generated worksheet with, for example, more than 64K rows and 256 columns.
2. From what I see, all of the Office applictions much be either 32-bit or 64-bit.  You can't mix parts of the 32-bit and 64-bit suites.
3. Whether or not Windows is 64-bit and able to make use of more than 4GB is not related to whether or not 32-bit Office is of benefit.  Memory management is up to the operating system, not any particular application.