Determine Current Installed Version of Office

[GraeagleBill]

Is there a way to determine the current version of Office other than to exhaustively look for directories Office11, Office12, Office14...........etc. Clearly advances in versions would render such searches as useless.

[GraeagleBill]

Actually I'm wanting to know the directory for winword.exe, as my app needs to shell to word.

[JoeM]

See: https://support.office.com/en-us/art...9-e334518b8b19

[ItsMe]

I use the Version property to determine the version of Access.
msgbox Application.Version

However, that is not a guarantee that Word is the same version. I would check for the existence of the directory. Maybe loop through iterations of a string to see if the directory exists. Maybe something like the following will bring the latest version\upgrade.

dim strPath as string
dim strOfficePath as string

for i = 11 to 20

strPath = "Some\Directory\Office" & i & "\More stuff to find Word"  
  
If Dir(strPath, vbDirectory) > "" Then
      strOfficePath = strPath
end if

next i

[GraeagleBill]

Yes, I had already tested some code like what you've offered but had the concern that someday Microsoft would depart from the use of OFFICExx as their sub-directory of "Microsoft Office". I don't like sending apps out that have such exposures.

Thanks,
Bill

[GraeagleBill]

Yes, I had already tested some code like what you've offered but had the concern that someday Microsoft would depart from the use of OFFICExx as their sub-directory of "Microsoft Office". I don't like sending apps out that have such exposures.

Thanks,
Bill

[GraeagleBill]

I settled on this approach:

Option Compare Database
Option Explicit
Private Sub TestFindPath()
Dim strWORDexePath As String

strWORDexePath = WORDpath()    'App wan'ts to open AandB.doc in WORD, so where is WORD?

    If strWORDexePath = "" Then
        MsgBox "Unable to locate Microsoft WORD application." & vbNewLine & _
               "Please open WORD manually to file AandB.doc manually."
    Else
        MsgBox strWORDexePath
    End If
    
End Sub

Public Function WORDpath() As String
'*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*
' Nominal directory for Microsoft Office (32 bit version) is:
' "c:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Office\OFFICExx\" where "xx" corresponds to the version of Microsoft Office.
' We limit our search to that hierarchy beginning with Office 2003 (OFFICE11) and return a zero
' length string if WINWORD.EXE isn't found, letting using program decide what to do.
'*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*
Dim I As Integer
Dim strWORDpath As String
Dim strTESTpath As String
WORDpath = ""               ' Return a zero length string if loop doesn't find WINWORD.exe

    For I = 11 To 20
    strTESTpath = "c:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Office\Office" & I & "\winword.exe"
    strWORDpath = Dir(strTESTpath)
        If strWORDpath > "" Then
            WORDpath = strTESTpath     ' Okay, we found it
            Exit For
        End If
    Next I

End Function

[ItsMe]

Not sure you will be able to do much better than that. I believe you are trying to avoid late binding, but you could use late binding and open a hidden instance of Word. Then you could check the Object's .Version property. Maybe do something like this at time of setup and store the value in a table.

[GraeagleBill]

I think I'll let "sleeping dogs lie" at this point.

While the app has extensive facilities builtin to update back-end DB's in the filed with any version updates that affect DB structure, it would be easier to deal with field complaints in the unlikely event that Microsoft changes their directory hierarchy. I will update the code to also search "Program Files" should anyone happen to install a 64bit version of Office in the future.

Thanks,
Bill