Vista comes with a previewer mechanism, but it doesn't come with a Time
Machine :-). Office 2003 doesn't know anything about the Vista previewer
because it was released before Vista existed - in general an updated version
of the app that handles the format needs to be updated to include previewer
support. This includes Adobe PDF Reader and Microsoft Office.

Dave

"Arend" <Arend@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:1495F0C1-1475-4EB3-9D0F-F0CC1EB3C5F4@microsoft.com...
> Hi,
>
> I have the same problem and honestly I don’t quite understand this! Vista
> shows in preview pane pdf files but not office 2003 files?
> Is this plug-in you mentioned anywhere available for download? Or we need
> to
> go and buy office 2007 in order to see the documents in the preview pane
> of
> vista????!!!
>
> Regards,
> Christos
>
>
> "Dave Wood [MS]" wrote:
>
>> The Preview Pane runs on a "plug-in" model where a component suitable for
>> previewing each file type must be installed and registered on the
>> machine.
>> For Office documents the previewer components ship with Office 2007, but
>> not
>> Office 2003 {because, amongst other reasons, Office 2003 had already
>> shipped
>> prior to the time the Vista previewer architecture was designed}.
>>
>>
>> "malcp" <malcp@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
>> news:7AEBAE37-67B8-478C-98F2-273473F8A2A1@microsoft.com...
>> > does anyone know how to make preview pane preview office docs .
>> > I have office 2003 professional and vista ultimate. Preview pane in
>> > explorer
>> > previews pictures music and even adobe pdf files but willl not do
>> > office
>> > docs
>> > from word or excel. microsoft support says it does not do them but why.
>> > So I am hoping that someone out there knows how to fix the problem as I
>> > cant
>> > see the point of preview pane if it does not preview your word docs.
>> > --
>> > malcp
>>
>>