Hi and thanks for your detailed information!
Meanwhile, I had performed various tests. As you say, it turned out that this should definitely be done in a fresh virtual machine. I used Windows XP in VMware Workstation Player.
In contrast to the captured installations on a work laptop with Windows 11, which took hours, turned out to be like 1.5 GB in size and did not work properly afterwards, the recording of the installation of Word 2003 in the virtual machine took only a few minutes and was smaller than 50 MB!
I had also come across Cameyo in the meantime and had used it for the capturing and packaging, in what I believe was the latest version from
here.
Word 2003 packaged this way seems to run fine. However, when moving the package from the virtual machine to my desktop PC with Windows 10, I got various messages from Defender regarding alleged malware.
While I know that these are false positives, I am now hesitant to run the package on the actual target machine (my office laptop where I do not have admin privileges). If a virus is reported there, then I unfortunately have the IT department coming after me right away
Also, I use Dragon NaturallySpeaking to dictate text in Word 2003, which is also a major reason why I use this old version, besides my hundreds of macros and customizations in Word 2003.
Word 2003 still shows unmatched compatibility and speed together with NaturallySpeaking.
For this to work, NaturallySpeaking needs a DLL loaded in Word by the name of dgnword.dll. I can probably include this DLL in the virtualized Word 2003 package (using Cameyo) as well, can't I?