Best to get the Service Pack now.
Despite the ‘retirement’ of Office 2003 and Windows XP, both programs continue to work and all past updates will be available for download from Microsoft.
However we suggest that you grab the major updates to Office 2003 now to save yourself hassle and time later.
The last major update to Office 2003 was Service Pack 3. Sure, you can download it each time but it’s better and faster to download the 118MB update once.
You can get Service Pack 3 from Microsoft as a single download.
We suggest saving the update in the same folder as your install copy of Office 2003 so it’s easily found later. Or save it to a CD/DVD/USB stick with the install disk.
The same goes for Windows XP too. Download Windows XP Service Pack 3 and save it with your XP install files. That link is for a full 316MB download of SP3 called “…Network Installation Package for IT Professionals and Developers” but is suitable for single computers too.
Both downloads have the complete update, not just a small package with more to download.
Unfortunately, Microsoft won’t release an ‘end of life’ pack with all updates to April 2014 bundled into a single download. You’ll have to use Windows Update to get any patches created after the respective Service Packs.
This advice especially applies if you have Windows XP or Office 2003 on a virtual machine. A Windows XP virtual machine lets you continue with programs that need XP or you’re more comfortable with XP. Windows 8.1 for Microsoft Office users has step-by-step instructions on how to make a Windows XP virtual machine.
Once you have a virtual machine, turn off the network support to the Internet. That will prevent intrusion from hackers.
