You receive a “This file cannot be opened because it was created with a newer or unrecognized version of Visio” error message when you try to open a Visio drawing in Visio 2003

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SYMPTOMS

In Microsoft Office Visio 2002, when you try to open a Visio drawing that was created in Microsoft Office Visio 2003, you may receive the following error message:

<path>\filename.vsd
This file cannot be opened because it was created with a newer or unrecognized version of Visio. For Visio upgrade information, visit http://www.microsoft.com/office/visio.

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CAUSE

This problem may occur if all the following conditions are true:

You open an embedded object in Visio 2003.
In the new Visio window, you save the embedded object as Visio 2002 Drawing (*.vsd).
You try to open the Visio 2002 Drawing file in Visio 2002.

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WORKAROUND

To work around this problem, open the embedded object in Visio and save the embedded drawing as Drawing (*.vsd). To do this, follow these steps:

Open the Visio 2003 document that contains the embedded object.
Right-click the embedded object, point to Visio Object, and then click Open.
In the new Visio window, on the File menu, click Save Copy As.
In the Save Copy As dialog box, change the Save as type box to Drawing (*.vsd), type a file name in the File name box, and then click Save.
On the File menu, click Exit & Return to Drawing.
In Visio 2003, open the drawing that you saved in step 4.
On the File menu, click Save As.
In the Save As dialog box, change the Save as type box to Visio 2002 Drawing (*.vsd), type a file name in the File name box, and then click Save.
In Visio 2002, open the file that you saved in step 8.

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STATUS

Microsoft has confirmed that this is a problem in the Microsoft products that are listed in the "Applies to" section.

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MORE INFORMATION

For more information, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

870571 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/870571/ ) "This file cannot be opened because it was created with a newer or unrecognized version of Visio" error message when you try to open a Visio drawing

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