About Backward Compatibility

  • Article

Microsoft Office InfoPath 2007 supports creating and modifying form templates created in Microsoft Office InfoPath 2003 with Microsoft Office 2003 Editions Service Pack 1 or later. Form templates created prior to Service Pack 1 can only be upgraded to Service Pack 1 compatiblity. Office InfoPath 2007 includes options in the form template design environment to check compatibility with InfoPath 2003 and to save form templates in the InfoPath 2003 format, however in all cases the term InfoPath 2003 refers to InfoPath 2003 with Service Pack 1 or later.

Upgrading existing pre-Service Pack 1 form templates

When a form template created in InfoPath 2003 is first opened in InfoPath 2007, the solutionFormatVersion attribute of the xDocumentClass of the manifest.xsf is checked. If it is less than 1.100.0.0, the following message is displayed:

This form template is not compatible with the current version of InfoPath. You must upgrade the template before distributing it to users. If you upgrade the form template, all users will need to have InfoPath 2003 SP1 or later installed, or the template must be published to InfoPath Forms Services and browser-enabled. Do you want to upgrade this form template?

Selecting OK will upgrade the form template to be compatible with InfoPath 2003 Service Pack 1 or later.

If you need to maintain a form template that is only compatible with InfoPath 2003 pre-SP1, you must use InfoPath 2003.

Creating new form templates

By default, all new form templates you create will be compatible with Office InfoPath 2007. You can choose to save form templates in the InfoPath 2003 format. To do this, follow these steps:

  1. On the File menu, click Save As.
  2. In the Save as type drop down box, click InfoPath 2003 Form Template (*.xsn).
  3. Click Save.

Note

Browser-compatible form templates can be published to a server running InfoPath Forms Services if they are saved in the InfoPath 2003 format, however they cannot contain custom form code. If you need to publish form templates containing custom code to a server running InfoPath Forms Services and have them available to users that do not have InfoPath 2003 or InfoPath 2007 installed, you must choose the InfoPath Form Template (*.xsn) type in the Office InfoPath 2007 Save or Save As dialog box. In addition, your code must be written in Visual Basic or Visual C#. JScript, VBScript, Visual Basic (InfoPath 2003 Compatible), and Visual C# (InfoPath 2003 Compatible) are not supported on the server.

Using the Design Checker to show compatibility issues

The Design Checker can be used to check the InfoPath 2003 compatibility of a form template designed in Office InfoPath 2007. To enable this, follow these steps:

  1. On the Tools menu, click Form Options.
  2. In Categories, click Compatibility.
  3. In the Backward compatibility section, click Show report on compatibility with InfoPath 2003.
  4. Click OK.
  5. If there are errors, you will see them in the Design Checker task pane detailing features in the form template that are not compatible with InfoPath 2003. Fix any errors that are displayed.
  6. On the File menu, click Save As.
  7. In the Save as type drop down box, click InfoPath 2003 Form Template (*.xsn).
  8. Click Save.

Scripting and the New object model members

All object model members documented in the class library reference contain version information. This is the version in which the member was introduced, however InfoPath 2003 refers to members introduced in either InfoPath 2003 or InfoPath 2003 with Service Pack 1. New Office InfoPath 2007 object model members are indicated by InfoPath 2007.

Note

A form template saved from Office InfoPath 2007 in the InfoPath 2003 Form Template (*.xsn) format cannot be opened on a computer with InfoPath 2003 SP1 or later unless the Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0 is also installed on that computer.