Find out what version of Office 2007 you're running - don't use Help|About

Ok, you can use Help|About (in previous versions, anyway--in Office 2007, you click the Office Button, then Program-Name Options, then Resources, then About) to find out what version of Office 2007 you're running. However, this can be misleading, because hotfixes or public updates can contain fixes that are provided in the latest service pack, and these may or may not change the version number in the About Microsoft Program_Name dialog box.

For a more reliable evaluation, do one of the following:

• Run appwiz.cpl and click View installed updates in the left-hand nav (for Windows XP, click Start|Run, and type in appwiz.cpl; for Vista, just click Start and type appwiz.cpl in the Start Search box).

• Verify the version in the properties of the executable files. The folders to look in are:

C:\Program Files \Microsoft Office\Office12 for Office programs
C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\OFFICE12 for the Mso.dll file

The original release and service packs of the 2007 Office programs have the following executable file names and version numbers:

Office 2007 product	File name	Original release version	SP1 version
2007 Microsoft Office suite	Mso.dll	12.0.4518.1014	12.0.6213.1000
Microsoft Office Access 2007	Msaccess.exe	12.0.4518.1014	12.0.6211.1000
Microsoft Office Excel 2007	Excel.exe	12.0.4518.1014	12.0.6214.1000
Microsoft Office Groove 2007	Groove.exe	12.0.4518.1014	12.0.6211.1000
Microsoft Office InfoPath 2007	InfoPath.exe	12.0.4518.1014	12.0.6214.1000
Microsoft Office OneNote 2007	OneNote.exe	12.0.4518.1014	12.0.6211.1000
Microsoft Office Outlook 2007	Outlook.exe	12.0.4518.1014	12.0.6212.1000
Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2007	PowerPnt.exe	12.0.4518.1014	12.0.6211.1000
Microsoft Office Project 2007	WinProj.exe	12.0.4518.1014	12.0.6211.1000
Microsoft Office Publisher 2007	Mspub.exe	12.0.4518.1014	12.0.6211.1000
Microsoft Office SharePoint Designer 2007	Spdesign.exe	12.0.4518.1014	12.0.6211.1000
Microsoft Office Word 2007	WinWord.exe	12.0.4518.1014	12.0.6211.1000
Microsoft Office Visio 2007	VisLib.dll	12.0.4518.1014	12.0.6211.1000

 

For more information, see KB928116 (Office 2007), KB821549 (Office 2003), KB291331 (Office XP), and KB255275 (Office 2000).

- Andrea Weiss