Three weeks ago, a federal appeals court ordered Microsoft to stop selling Word with Custom XML as of today due to patent infringement, and now we see that the company has struggled to meet the deadline for its many SKUs and versions. Microsoft previously said that it would be able to meet the kill date for Office 2007.

On the Microsoft Store, there are 32 results when you choose to display All Office Products, but the majority of them are not available for purchase today. Generally speaking, all individual Office applications excluding Word are still being sold. In terms of Office suites, all of which include Word, availability depends on how quickly Microsoft has rolled out the versions without custom XML. For example, at the time of this writing, Office Standard 2007, Office Small Business 2007, Office Standard 2007 Upgrade, Office 2008 for Mac Business Edition, and Office 2008 for Mac Home and Student Edition are not available, while Office Ultimate 2007 Office Professional 2007 and Office Professional 2007 are available.

On the online store, Microsoft does not give an explanation as to why the products are not available: "This product is currently unavailable while we update versions on our site. We expect it to be available soon." The "Not available" messages will soon show the correct price tags again, but the software giant refused to disclose what deadline it has given itself.

Meanwhile, the company managed to re-release Office 2007 (Professional, Professional Plus, Ultimate, and Enterprise) for its MSDN and TechNet subscribers on Friday, just in time for Monday's deadline. An Office 2003 edition with Custom XML was not so lucky and unsurprisingly Microsoft didn't give the older version the same priority as Office 2007, though a Custom XML removing patch for Word 2003 was posted on the Microsoft Download Center over the weekend. Microsoft also managed to get a patch out for Word 2007 last week, but notes to users that neither are mandatory unless the company communicates otherwise in a separate message.

"We've taken steps to comply with the court's ruling and are introducing the revised software into the US market," a Microsoft spokesperson confirmed with Ars. "Only Office 2003 Professional edition was temporarily removed from MSDN/TechNet as part of this process and will be back up soon. Office 2003 Standard is still available to MSDN/TechNet subscribers." Microsoft only needs to modify versions of Word and Office that include custom XML and were sold before January 11, 2010 before it reintroduces them into the marketplace as newly compliant products. Office 2010, which is set to arrive in June 2010, does not include Custom XML.