Do 2010 and/or 2013 corrupt 2003 files?

http://technicalforum.org/ms-office/...ted-excel-file
suggests that .XLS files extensions may go corrupt when opening in 2010 or higher. I do not know how credible the claim is. I do not know if service packs are a factor.

One machine in my shop is newly running 2010 and after modifying and saving an .XLS originated in 2003, the file now appears to be corrupt, albeit subtly. One symptom is that I can't "show comments." I can go alt-v,c and the option turns on, but the only way to see comments is flyover or editing individual cells' comments one at a time. Another symptom is that a rectangle Shape with text (originally created from the Drawing toolbar) spontaneously disappears (say, if I go page down then page up) and won't reappear. (BTW this isn't a level 1 user issue such as with comment dimensions or comments existing in scrolled-off panes of a frozen worksheet. It's real. Finally, 2003, 2007 and 2010 all exhibit the corrupt symptoms on this file.)

I do understand that this could be a "one-off" file, and that the obvious damage to this file is minor, hopefully limited to comments and Shapes (though who knows how far the damage goes, and if the file will always be "openable"). But I am concerned if it turns out that this is an endemic 2010+ issue. After one day with 2010 this is what I see.

Corruption is a deadly, deadly killer because unless you audit every single byte of an Excel file every time you open it - essentially an impossibility - permanent corruption may occur at any time, SILENTLY. Because it's silent, you may only realize it after you've "cycled around the block" on backups leaving you irrevocably damaged.

It would be nice if MS admitted this and made free user tools to diagnose corruption progressively as you open files. It might audit all properties for nonsensical values, indicate on which sheet(s) or cell(s) corruption occurs, etc. This could be a slow, slow tool only used when users have critical files they either need to defend or rescue. But I'm not holding my breath. For all I know, 2003 corruption is a purposeful (yet cleverly subtle and gradual) feature of 2010+, extorting users to upgrade to the dog****, highly deproductive post-2003 versions.

I had trouble with my newly purchased 2010 until I repaired it. It's an option in the add-remove programs in the control panel.