FilesBeforeVersion - Part 2

Years ago as I was moving to the new UI for Office 2007 I ran across a situation where Office quit supporting some of the older versions of Office files that used the binary file formats, e.g. Word 1.

Some Googling turned up a messy registry hack but you only had to do it once.

I recently moved my wife from Windows XP and Office 2003 to Windows 7 and Office 2010. As luck would have it the very first night she had a problem with old versions of Word files.

She had gotten some old Word files from where she volunteers. She just wanted to print one of them and got a message that she wasn't allowed to print due to "policy."

Protected View.  Printing has been disabled for this file due to your policy settings.

You and I would think that the "policy" referred to was some administrative, e.g. group policy, but NO. That's just Microsoft's arbitrary "policy."

Here's how to relieve that.

In the "Print" dialog, click on "Options."

Then click on "Trust Center" and then "File Block Settings." Uncheck the versions you want to use and click on "OK."