Will Microsoft stop supporting the 2003 web components, since they are not installed with Office 2007?

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Problem Type : Office Web Components
Problem Category : Product components



We have been using the Office Web Components extensively in all our products since they were first introduced in Office 2000. As you will notice when you use our products those components are powerful and versatile. They allow us a flexibility that other components doesn't give  us.

If you don't have them installed, they are on the Office CD and the installation package is named MSOWC.msi, MSOWC10.msi or OWC11.msi. You may also download the Office Web Components from Microsoft. The version for Office 2003 works equally well with Office 2007.

As you can imagine we were distraught when Microsoft decided not to include the Office Web Components in Office 2007 and we started looking for alternatives. However we soon learned that Microsoft did continue to support the Office Web Components by re-compiling it for use with Office 2007. You can in fact see that the version number of the latest Office Web Components is 12 - same as the rest of Office 2007.

Of course we don't have an insight as to what MS will do with Office Web Components in the future - but we are monitoring it closely.
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