Microsoft Office 2003 succeeded Office XP and featured two
new exclusive applications. InfoPath is useful for designing and submitting
electronic forms while the OneNote focused on serving as a note-taking
application. It might be interesting to note that this software suite came with
Windows XP style icons along with visual styles / colors. Only the NT based
versions of Windows could run Office 2003. In other terms, it was not
compatible with the non-NT based OSes such as Windows 98 and Windows ME. The
office suite may or may not work with the latest Windows 8.1. While Microsoft
claims that Office 2003 is incompatible with Windows 8.1, many users have
managed to run the same office software without any issues in their personal
computers.
Office XP came under a lot of fire because the company only
included a limited set of improvements to the various programs such as Word,
Excel and PowerPoint. However, Office 2003 was better because it came with
improved functionalities in several diverse areas. The email and calendar
integration offered by the office software suite received copious amounts of
praises from critics as well. The Outlook 2003 featured a much more improved
junk mail filter too.
In 2003, tablets and other touch-based devices were gaining
prominence and perhaps this could explain why Microsoft decided to support
these devices. An improved reading layout view was also there with the Office
2003. Comparing different documents and tracking the changes made to the
documents also became simpler with this productivity suite. Fully customizable
toolbars and menus were also one of the features removed by Microsoft in the
later iterations after keeping it in Office 2003. The company also removed the
Office Assistant from the later products. The Microsoft Office 2003 product key
generator is an excellent add-on for all those who wish to use this software
program to its fullest.