Article ID: 978951 - Last Review: October 20, 2010 - Revision: 2.0

Description of the January 2010 update for Word 2003 and for Word 2007

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INTRODUCTION

This is an update to Microsoft Office Word 2007 (including the 2007 Microsoft Office systems) and to Microsoft Office Word 2003 (including the Office 2003 suites). This update was issued as a result of a United States court ruling on December 22, 2009. Generally, customers who purchase or license Word 2007 or Word 2003 from Microsoft after January 10, 2010, for use in the United States and its territories have to use updated software that does not include a particular custom XML tagging implementation. The following section provides more information about the custom XML tagging capability that is removed by this update. 

You must install this update if you are instructed by Microsoft in a separate communication.
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MORE INFORMATION

Versions of Word 2007 that are distributed by Microsoft after January 10, 2010, no longer read the custom XML markup that may be contained within .docx, .docm, .dotx, .dotm or .xml files. The new versions of Word 2007 or the updated version of Word 2003 can still open these files, but any custom XML markup is removed.

Custom XML markup in Word documents is visible in the Word user interface as pink (the default color) tag names surrounding text in a document. For an example of this, visit the following MSDN website:  
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa212889(office.11).aspx (http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa212889(office.11).aspx)
If you apply this update to versions of Word 2003 or of Word 2007 that were distributed by Microsoft before January 11, 2010, the updated version will treat custom XML markup in the same manner as versions of Word distributed by Microsoft after January 10, 2010.

The following features of Word are not affected by the update.
  • Content controls are not affected. Content controls are a common method of structuring document content and mapping content to custom XML parts.
  • Open XML standards (all ECMA and ISO versions) are not affected.
  • Custom XML markup that is stored within Word 97-2003 document (.DOC) files is not affected.
  • Ribbon XML and Ribbon Extensibility are not affected.
  • Custom XML Parts are not affected. For more information about custom XML Parts, visit the following MSDN Website: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb608618.aspx.
  • The Word object model is not affected. However, some object model methods that deal with custom XML markup may produce different results.
    • The TransformDocument method will continue to work, but any custom XML markup within the results of the transform will be removed.
    • The InsertXML method will continue to work, but any custom XML markup that is present will be removed before the content is inserted.
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Installation details

How to obtain and install the update

To obtain this update for Word 2007, visit the Update for Microsoft Office Word 2007 (KB974631) (http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=1233f5af-9348-4290-b8ed-518011ed033f&displaylang=en) page on the Microsoft Download Center. For detailed information about the download, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:
974631  (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/974631/ ) Description of the update for Office Word 2007: January 2010

To obtain this update for Word 2003, visit the Update for Microsoft Office Word 2003 (KB979045) (http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=b476c4bd-3342-49ac-bb47-d59927d489f0) page on the Microsoft Download Center. For detailed information about the download, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:
979045  (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/979045/ ) Description of the update for Office Word 2003: January 2010


Note If you are a developer of a solution that uses custom XML markup, be aware that support for custom XML markup is no longer available. Many of the scenarios implemented by using custom XML markup can be implemented by using alternative technologies, such as content controls, form fields, and bookmarks which are available in Word 2007 and Word 2010. For example, as explained in the following articles, content controls (in addition to these other technologies such as bookmarks) enable developers to create structured documents and can be used to assign arbitrary values to structured content. These arbitrary values can be used to assign semantic meaning to parts of your content.

For more information about content controls, visit the following Microsoft webpages:
Creating Word 2007 Templates Programmatically (http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb266219(v=office.12).aspx)
Building Word 2007 Document Templates Using Content Controls (http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb264571(office.12).aspx)
Mapping Word 2007 Content Controls to Custom XML Using the XMLMapping Object (http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb510135(office.12).aspx)
How to: Bind a Content Control to a Node in the Data Store (http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb243814(office.12).aspx)
Taking Advantage of Bound Content Controls (http://blogs.msdn.com/b/brian_jones/archive/2009/01/05/taking-advantage-of-bound-content-controls.aspx)
The Easy Way to Assemble Multiple Word Documents (http://blogs.msdn.com/b/brian_jones/archive/2008/12/08/the-easy-way-to-assemble-multiple-word-documents.aspx)
Creating Data-Bound Content Controls using the Open XML SDK and LINQ to XML (http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ericwhite/archive/2008/10/19/creating-data-bound-content-controls-using-the-open-xml-sdk-and-linq-to-xml.aspx)
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REFERENCES

2445062  (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2445062/ ) Error Message when you try to open a document in Word: "The file contains custom XML elements which are no longer supported by Word."
2445060  (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2445060/ ) Custom XML mapping is removed when you open a document in Word 2010
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APPLIES TO
  • Microsoft Office Word 2007
  • Microsoft Office Word 2003
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Keywords: 
kbhowto kbexpertisebeginner kbsurveynew KB978951
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