Office 2010 Affects Application Compatibility

Office 2010 offers new features, including a 64-bit edition that could improve performance with extremely large files, while some features have been eliminated or “deprecated” (meaning they will not get improvement in future versions and may eventually be eliminated). As with previous versions, organizations should test existing documents and customizations for compatibility before upgrading to Office 2010.

Customers moving to 32-bit Office 2010 from Office 2007 will have the fewest compatibility problems, while customers running older Office versions, or deploying the 64-bit edition, may face more problems. In either case, the key to successful deployment lies in knowing how Office is used in an organization and what steps can be taken now to make an eventual transition to 64-bit Office less painful.

Office Migration Problems

The major compatibility issues raised in Office 2010 are file formats, deprecated and removed features, and Office customizations which must be updated prior to migration to 64-bit.