Office 2003

Microsoft Office 2003 is a version of Microsoft Office, which was released to manufacturing on 19 August 2003 and then to consumers two months later on 21 October 2003. It is the last version of Microsoft Office to support Windows 2000 SP3, Windows 2000 SP4, Windows XP RTM, Windows XP SP1 and Windows Server 2003 RTM.

New features
It includes a refreshed UI, which changed its color in relation to the selected Windows XP visual style. However, this feature worked with the Luna theme only, because the Classic and custom themes caused the UI to be colored gray. OneNote and InfoPath also debuted with this Office version. It is the last version of Office with the Office Assistant included. It needs to be enabled manually, since it is disabled by default since Office XP.

It no longer comes with the Microsoft Office Shortcut Bar and it no longer installs shortcuts to create a new or open an existing document on the Start menu by default, as both become hidden under the new two-column Start menu of Windows XP and Windows Server 2003. However, the latter option is still available and will be installed if the user installs Office 2003 with the "Complete" install type or if the user enables the option after selecting the "Custom" install type.

It is also the last version of Office to include the traditional menu bar and toolbar interface across all programs, as well as the last version to use the "97 - 2003" file format ( for documents and   for templates) as the default file format and to have Arial and Times New Roman as the default fonts across all applications.

Compatibility
System requirements were raised to Windows 2000 SP3, Windows XP RTM, and Windows XP SP1. This version of Office supports Windows 2000 Service Pack 3 to Windows 7 alongside their server counterparts, although it can unofficially run on Windows 8 and later. It is the first version of Office to support only NT-based operating systems as support for DOS-based versions of Windows was entirely eliminated.

System requirements

 * Windows 2000 SP3 or later
 * Pentium 233 MHz; Pentium II 400 MHz required for speech recognition; 450 MHz required for Business Contact Manager for Outlook 2003; Pentium III recommended
 * 128 MB of RAM; 256 MB required for Business Contact Manager
 * Hard disk space:
 * 210 MB (Student and Teacher, Standard)
 * 380 MB (Small Business)
 * 400 MB (Professional)
 * Additional 190 MB required for Business Contact Manager
 * CD-ROM drive
 * 800x600 SVGA with 256 colors
 * Mouse and keyboard; stylus and touchscreen for certain inking functionality
 * Audio output device required for multimedia effects; microphone additionally required for speech recognition