As a Partner, how can I view the .docx or .xlsx format files posted online?

I have seen some questions floating around about some of the downloads posted on the Microsoft.com and the Partner.microsoft.com site that are in either the .docx or .xlsx file formats, which are the Office 2007 versions of Word and Excel file formats and how to view and open them. As a Microsoft Partner, you have a few very readily available solutions to view these files:

1) As a Microsoft Partner, you should already have Microsoft Office 2007 through your Microsoft Action Pack Subscription, your Microsoft Certified Partner, or your Microsoft Gold Certified Partner benefits. As such, you already have Excel 2007 and Word 2007 which will open these in their native format.

2) We make the Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack for Word, Excel, and PowerPoint 2007 File Formats available to everyone so that they can view the Office 2007 file formats if they do not already have Office 2007 (as Microsoft Partners, you already do have Office 2007, so this option is mostly intended for others)

Since Microsoft Office 2007 was launched almost eight months ago, you should probably expect to see more and more items in the Office 2007 formats being used on the various sites.

Thank you and have a wonderful day,

Eric Ligman
Microsoft US Senior Manager
Small Business Community Engagement
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights