Advice request on upgrading office 2010

[Neill]

Hello everyone,



This is my first post on the forum which I discovered through a friend and it looks like a fantastic resource. I have a bit of a dilemma and hoping for some advice.

A bit of background info first. I’m self-taught and for the last year have run a part time computer repair business, focussing on home customers. To provide validation of my skills to customers I’ve been self-studying Comptia a+ and just the other day passed 202-901. Once I pass 902 I’ll be looking at other Microsoft or Comptia certs.

Anyhow, one of my customers recommended me to a small business owner who needed a bit of general IT help, I got on well with the owner and have done a few jobs for them, anti-virus installation, setting up a printer etc.

The owner has a single PC in their office running windows 7 pro and they’re using Office pro 2010 retail version. Mainly they use outlook, access and word.

Now they’ve bought Office pro 2016 retail version and want me to come around and install it. I don’t have much experience of office installations yet so have been reading up online, but some articles give conflicting advice.

Can I just download and install office 2016 and then remove 2010? I’m most concerned about how it will affect outlook, as if I understand correctly outlook 2016 uses a different pst file location? They have a private email address and a yahoo email account.

Also the access database which has details of all their customers going back years is password protected. Will upgrading make any difference to this in terms of opening the database?

Many thanks,



Neill

 

[timeshifter]

Did they tell you why or did you ask why they bought the 2016 edition?

 

[Neill]

I don't know, they just rung me up and said they had bought a newer office and if I could help install it.

 

[Your PCMD]

Installing 2016 will not 'upgrade' the 2010 installation, it will however use the original Outlook Profile and its settings. In Outlook File>Import/Export is not something you would want to do.

You would need to manually uninstall 2010. Most other settings should carry over. Also, the following may help you along your way if you get stuck, which you should not as it's a fairly easy process.

https://support.office.com/en-us/ar...urations-e178f6d6-1515-4c7e-8202-6c7f4794c0a3

 

[timeshifter]

I don't know, they just rung me up and said they had bought a newer office and if I could help install it.

I'd ask them why they are doing it. Office 2016 has a totally different look and feel / user interface than Office 2010. His Access database may or may not convert well to the newer version... that used to be a big issue in prior upgrades, but I think it's better now than it used to be.

 

[TurricanII]

What's the worst that could happen: You try the upgrade and break the Access database. The developer is nowhere to be found and you are up the creek without a paddle. They can't access the database and lose revenue.

Make a not of what versions of MSAccess and the MSAccess runtimes may be installed before you start.

I'd use something like a bootable Clonezilla CD/USB to back up the hard drive to USB or to your laptop before upgrading Office with that Access database in the mix - and with you not having much experience. If you use an imaging program to snapshot the hard drive you can at least roll it back if the excrement hits the fan.

Do they have more that one PC using this Access DB?

 

[glennd]

Back up!!!

Back up!!!

Back

Up!!!

 

[Markverhyden]

Back up!!!

Back up!!!

Back

Up!!!

If I remember correctly the twelve commandments of IT state there should be 8 more of those. LOL!!!

All the comments above are very valid and need to be evaluated. But the first thing you need to address, if it's not already been done, is making sure you have a functioning backup. Meaning you've done the round trip. Backup, then a restore to another disk and test for functionality on the same chassis. And have two copies of the backup.

Next I'd test Access. Hopefully you've got a laptop with W7. Even if it's Home that would be fine. You can download and install a trial version of Office Pro 2016 - https://products.office.com/en-us/try . Copy the DB over and have them test it thoroughly.

For Outlook. Yes the 2016 install should migrate things over. What is also needed is to make sure you know how it's setup, POP vs IMAP vs Exchange. Credentials are very important. Use webmail to test those.

 

[Neill]

Thank you everybody for the replies, lots of really good advice and plenty for me to think about. It's great that there is a community like this. I'll do an update on how things move forward.