Migrating from version 2002 upwards

[tamarisk]

Hi from a newbie.

I have about a hundred building construction drawings created in Visio 2002 SP2, which is obviously no longer supported by Microsoft. I want to install a newer supported version of Visio that I can use to edit the drawings but I understand that this is not a simple process.

I've been told that I need to upgrade to the version I want in stages i.e. 2002 to 2003 then 2003 to 2007 then 2007 to 2010 and so on, opening and saving each drawing in each newer version before moving on to the next version. I've also been told this will not work.

I've tried searching the internet but I can't find an answer one way or the other.

Can any one advise what I need to do. The version of Visio is not important at this stage as long as it is supported.

The PC is running Windows 10 Pro 64bit with Office 2019 Pro Plus

Any help will be much appreciated

[Nikolay]

I don't see any particular reason to upgrade like this (2002 to 2003 then 2003 to 2007 then 2007 to 2010 and so on)

You should be able simply install the latest version (2019 to match your office) and open the 2002 drawings. The latest version (2019) should be able to open even Visio 5 files (~25 years old)
There is just one switch you may be affected with, you need to disable blocking old files. This one:

[Paul Herber]

As far as I recall many of the shapes for this drawing type changed significantly at many Visio updates. So when opening the Visio 2002 drawing in Visio 2003 the user would be asked if the shapes should be updated to the new standard. But this didn't work correctly (or at all) if you skipped a version. I don't know if this applies to every version.
Possibly worth doing a test with one sample drawing and opening it in each of Visio 2003, 2007, 2010 etc and see what happens. I'd expect the shapes to be compatible from Visio 2010 onwards, but who knows.
The other thing to decide is whether to eventually save (in Visio 2013 onwards) in the new file format (.vsdx).
If you are using Visio 2002 then I think you only have one option for the file format viz. .vsd as the XML format (.vsx) wasn't introduced until Visio 2003.

[wapperdude]

For what it's worth, I've gone from V2007 directly to V2019 without any significant issues.  You do get a warning a out loss of features, but, it's not been a problem.

V2019 has been quite robust for the most part.  Like preceding upgrades, a few issues, but nothing catastrophic.  So, if you're going / able to leapfrog forward, V2019 is good destination.

[Paul Herber]

It's only certain shape types that have this problem. I'll have to fire up my Visio 2003 and 2007 and see what happens. I don't have Visio 2002 to create the whole upgrade path.
Tamarisk - could you attach one (or part of one) of your drawings so we can test this?