When did spellcheck become automatic?

[spellcheckresearcher]

Hello,

I am trying to find out which the last version of MS Word where you had to choose to activate spellcheck (compared to it being active to check spelling as you type by default). 

It seems to be somewhere between Windows 98 and Windows 7.

I'd really appreciate it if anyone could help to narrow this down.

[#2]

Spell check was introduced in MS WinWord 2003....

But actual autocorrect feature and dictionary store features started from MS winword 2007.... which looked something like this...

More details can be read on this link

https://www.uwec.edu/kb/article/microsoft-office-2007-working-with-spell-check/

Thank you for asking this question...

[#3]

@kinshukjoshii thank you so much for your help! 

Just to clarify, you're saying that spell check was active by default from 2003 onwards (including office 2003). Before office 2003 the user would need to click on menus/icons to activate spell check.