If you are using Outlook 2013 (or above), you can no longer upgrade just Outlook. You need to install the entire Office suite
Is it a good idea to upgrade Outlook only and use it with your older versions of Office? It depends... on the features you use and rely on and what your are willing to give up. The most noticeable problem is the editor is limited and missing features. You need to install Outlook and Word from the same suite to have the full editing capabilities of Word.
In Outlook 2007 and Outlook 2010, you'll have a limited version of Word available when only Outlook 2010 is installed, with some spelling and grammar features are missing. See Outlook 2010 Standalone and Features not available when only Outlook 2007 is installed for more information about those programs
In Outlook 2003, Word cannot be used as your email editor unless its installed from the Office 2003 suite, but even if you never use Word as your editor, there are other issues to consider before installing Outlook.
Tip: If you copy winword.exe from the old directory to the same directory as outlook.exe, you'll gain some of the spelling and grammar features back.
What you'll lose by upgrading only Outlook:
- Word as your email editor. In order to use Word as the editor, you need to use the same version of Word and Outlook. There is no hack you can use to make Outlook 2003 use older versions of Word as it's editor.
- Mail merge when initiated from Outlook's Contacts. You can still use mail merge if you begin it in Word and can use Outlook's Contacts in the merge. What do you lose by not starting the merge in Outlook? The ability to use Outlook's more powerful filters to create the mail merge dataset.
- Office envelope. This is the email header that's displayed in Word, Excel and other Office programs when you click the envelope button or choose File, Send to, Mail Recipient. You can still send documents as attachments.
- New Letter to Contact. You won't be able to select a Contact and choose Actions, New Letter to contact.
WordMail | Workarounds | Other Issues | More Information
Reasons to Upgrade
If you can tolerate the losses, this is some of what you'll gain:
- New features, including the Reading pane and Search folders, that make reading and organizing your email a much better experience.
- Improved spam filter
- Better email security against viruses
- Cached Exchange mode.
- RPC over HTTP (if using Exchange 2003)
While you don't lose a lot of features and there are simple workarounds for mail merge, we don't recommend upgrading only Outlook, even if you never use Word as your email editor. Outlook and the other Office programs work much better together when all of the applications are at the same version level.
Wordmail
The following Outlook 2003 features are unavailable unless Word is your email editor.
Signatures:
- You lose the ability to right click on a signature and choose a different one.
- Select a different email account and the signature changes to the one assigned to the new account
Outlook editor has fewer autocorrect features than Word and lacks autotext and other useful tools.
Workarounds
Mail merge:
Open Word and browse to the Tools, Letters and Mailings, Mail Merge menu and follow the wizard to create your merge.
Excel:
You can use these methods to mimic the Office envelope and send worksheets or selections (without using objects):
Both samples by Ron de Bruin, Microsoft Excel MVP
Other Issues
Upgrading just Outlook means twice as much work when applying patches and service packs, as you need to apply patches for two (or more) versions. You many need to repair Outlook 2003 after installing patches for older Office applications.
There are reports that updates reinstall Outlook 2002 bits. This results in Office XP needing to reconfigure itself each time Outlook 2003 is active.
Detect and Repair may be more difficult and require media for each version of Office.
I currently have Windows 10 & Office 2003 (I prefer Word 2003). I use Outlook only for the management of my personal calendar, nothing else. I would like to merge the calendar with my iPhone. I have been advised to upgrade Office to 2013 or 2016, which would require me to update my Word as well. Am I at a security risk with Office 2003? Is there anyway to upgrade only the calendar to a newer version so I can link it with my phone without having to upgrade Word? Am I at risk of losing my data if I don't upgrade at some point? Thanks!!
>> Am I at a security risk with Office 2003?
Yes, you are at a greater security risk with any of the older versions. iCloud is not supported with it, outlook.com won't sync with it - if you want to sync, you need to upgrade.
>> Is there anyway to upgrade only the calendar to a newer version so I can link it with my phone without having to upgrade Word?
They sell outlook as a standalone app but it may not play well with the older version of office. Would you consider another email client? eM client works well with Outlook.com and Gmail - i have not tried it with icloud, but it might work with it too. That would allow you to sync a calendar betweenb the desktop and phone... its free for 1 or 2 accounts.
I have a subscription version of Office 365 (2 years now) so do not need to upgrade this. However it appears I cannot upgrade Outlook and gain the benefits available without taking up another subscription of Office 365. Am I mistaken, if so please let me know how to proceed.
As long as you have a subscription (not the retail version) you should have the most recent version of office (unless you stayed on office 2013).
you can no longer upgrade outlook and not the rest of the suite (as of outlook 2013) - you need to install the entire suite.
This is a slightly different question, but: I have Office Professional 2007 on all computers in my office. All computers have Word macros I created and installed on each (and each time I add a new one, I have to relearn where they are stored and how to copy and install on each, but I digress). I also have a custom form in an specific Outlook Contacts folder, which is used as a data base for several mailmerge functions, that operate from Word. Installing this form on the separate computers was nightmarish, although I think I finally figured out how to do THAT without recreating the form on each computer. An entire weekend was spent on installing the custom contacts form on each computer. I use SimpleSyn to synchronize data; it does not synchronize forms, but it does the data on the custom forms. So, with that scenario, my questions are: (1) If I upgrade to Office Suite Professional 2010 or 2013, will I lose the Word macros? Do I have to save them and reinstall them on each computer? (2) If I upgrade to 2010 or 2013, will I lose the Outlook custom form on each computer? (3) Does… Read more Âğ
I hate Outlook 2010, because I can't find anything, and I hate everything being pre-empted, without my thoughts. I really like Outlook 2003, but can't get anything to open links. So, I am at a problem of whether to get a different mail program. Thanks, Mason!!
Is this on windows 10? See [post2post id="52377"] That said, Outlook 2003 is less secure and will not receive security updates - it's really better to use something else.
If you don't need programmability or business features, try eM client.