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29th
October
2007
 As a user of Microsoft Office for nearly 15 years now, (wow) I’ve become quite familiar with the pain of upgrading from one version to another, but this one really has a lot to hate. Something came over me this summer, and I finally installed my MS Action Pack version of Office 2007, which of course updated my Outlook, Word, Excel and Powerpoint. Within minutes, I wrote a post about them moving the status flags (incredibly stupid) but within hours the next item popped up and so I started to keep a list. Over the past couple of months, the list has been growing and growing, and I finally decided to post my dirty dozen this morning, after determining that I will never actually take the time to post screenshots. Feel free to add to the list! 1. Flags moved
2. Program overhaul - One Note If there was one thing I dislike about one note 2003, it was that if you had multiple projects open at any given time, there was no way to sort them, you simply had to close the ones you didn’t want to appear at all times. Well now I’m longing for the days of One Note 2003, because not only is there STILL no way to sort them, but it forces you to display all of your projects in tabs across the screen at any given time. No longer can I only have the eight to 10 projects open that I wish to have, I’m forced to keep all of my projects open at all times, even if I haven’t touched or looked at any of them for months. Microsoft One note used to make me more productive - and now it’s just like having a hundred sticky notes all over your monitor and you can’t find anything. Over the time it’s taken me to write this article, I’ve now gotten used to this, and figured out that there is a fairly efficient way of getting to every file on the left side. Still, this was an incredible pain in the neck and served no real purpose that I can tell other than to confuse the user. 3. Changing my Time Zone
What? Oh well… 4. Slower and more sluggish than you think I have a dual core Intel chip and four gigs of RAM, but am usually operating Camtasia, Dragon Naturally Speaking, and Outlook, as well as several browser windows. Office 2007 sluggishness is even less tolerable than version 2003…. sigh. I think a good rule of thumb would be not to buy any version of any Microsoft software that comes out after you buy your computer, without anticipating a big performance hit. 5. Copy/paste into e-mail is odd and frequently colors are incorrect. I frequently have to copy FTP paths out of my WSftp software into e-mail. For some reason, typing “http:/” and then pasting the entire FTP path /domain.com/folder/folder/filename.etc now suddenly leaves a space between the first two slashes after the : which makes the link inoperable. Agggh - fixing this repeatedly is absurd. Also, are there different clipboards? I use Ctrl-C more frequently than right click and paste, but I interchange often, sometimes right in the same few seconds. They’ve always been the same thing before, but now I frequently find myself attempting to paste one thing that I just copied, but Ctrl-V pastes something from a few minutes earlier. I’ve actually gotten stuck to the point of having to use only “right click copy” and “right-click paste” just to be able to send an e-mail. I haven’t taken the time to troubleshoot and replicate, but it happens every day. 6. Cannot look up contact?
Then I choose, “Show Help” and I get another message:
This error usually occurs when you attempt to view the calendar for a user who has one or more of the following issues: THEN - Clicking on the link gives this - You’ll notice that the error message I get says But all I did was choose to “view CONTACT” in my own sincgle user Outlook! sigh. 7. Mystery Mail Arrival I hit send and receive, can see I’m “receiving numbers 1 through however many emails”, then it says “send/receive complete” but all the new messageare not in the inbox that I can see. No kidding. I have to actually click a different mail folder, wait for the contents to render on the right, then click back on the “inbox”, on the left side, and “voila” there it is. I’m sure this is “not a Microsoft problem” and there “must be something wrong with my computer” but it sure is coincidental that it started the very moment I upgraded to Office 2007, and continues to this day. 8. Word 2007 can’t remember? Apparently four gigs of memory is enough to do what I want using office 2003 without ever encountering this error, but Office 2007 has stretched the limits of my measly four gigs of ram? This may be loosely related to #4 above, but the error is specific enough that I thought I would give it its own place on my list. 9. Ribbons of Shame
“File”, “Edit”, “view”, “tools” “help” etc. suddenly aren’t there any more in version 2007, and Microsoft has introduced what they are calling “Ribbons” as some sort of revolutionary way of bringing more options to users fingertips. I suppose it’s possible that in a year or two I will appreciate these improvements, but for now, while I’m trying to get work done, it’s a big pain in the neck. The inability to figure out how to do something simple, such as sorting columns in Excel, or Spellchecking in Word is infuriating and stupid. When Windows XP changed everything about the control panel from Windows 98, they offered a “switch to classic view” that allowed busy people to remain productive without having to learn their new “warm and fuzzy user friendly interface”. I appreciated that and use it to this day (I wonder if that’s in Vista?) No such option exists that I can find in Office 2007, and that really sucks bigtime, and has cost me a lot of time. 10. A link is not a program
OK There’s a link for “was this information helpful”, but all that did was thank me and disappear. Dear Microsoft, I suspect this is a ploy to get me to use IE 7 as my default browser, but I’m not giving up Firefox to try, because it happens less than three times a week. *** - Update 1/2008 - Here’s the fix for that issue if you’re using Firefox, and here’s the directions to fix if you’re using Internet Explorer 11. Cannot edit email signatures with .html Instead, we’re forced to use a third-party HTML editor or manually edit the file with notepad, which is located in c:/Documents and Setting/Username/Application Data/Microsoft/Signatures 12. Default Microsoft Blue is not acceptable anymore. I like to use royal blue text on all my html e-mail replies, and I have for years. There now seems to be a “richer color scheme” available to choose from, which is fine, but viewing “standard colors” does not show the normal shade of Microsoft blue that I’ve used for years. On the one hand, I suppose it’s time for a change, but on the other hand, why have they suddenly decided that standard royal blue, as defined by every previous version of Windows is suddenly not good enough for 2007? At least let me CHOOSE to use it if I want to! Bonus - 1. Still cant sort your “favorite” mail folders alphabetically (sort by name) I’ve only been using office 2007 for a couple of months, and I’m sure I’ll come up with more, but would love to see comments on this post with thoughts from others… |
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Copyright 2007; Search Commander; SEO Consultant Scott Hendison; All Rights Reserved.
October 31st, 2007 at 9:58 am
Updating software, particularly from Microsoft can be really frustrating. The glitches and settings accompanied by the fact that a lot of people don’t switch right away, thus causing incompatibilities between various programs (when you’re sending attachments or working with files with your clients, etc.) make working a challenge. These issues are why I tend to recommend to clients not to update their systems until far into the future. Thanks for pointing out some inconsistencies. It definitely makes me think about when and how I should update certain bits of software and operating systems.
October 31st, 2007 at 12:58 pm
Thanks for taking the time to comment… Yeah, a good rule of thumb might be to upgrade my PC before upgrading to new versions of MS software
November 5th, 2007 at 4:48 pm
RE: #6 - I believe this has something to do with the Sync tool accessing the Outlook PST file. Sometimes I get these errors and the backup tool does not work when my phone is plugged in.
November 6th, 2007 at 9:30 am
I maintain many systems and I have used MS Office since it started. Office 2007 has caused me so much frustration and annoyance that it feels like aliens took over writing Microsoft software. What a crazy idea to move all those easily accessible useful functions that could be accessed with a couple of clicks, to really hard to find places with tiny areas to click on to locate them. Add to that a new file format for WORD, and the lack of ability to Customise to what the USER needs. It stinks. And really I hear a lot of people saying - “Who needs it?” Possibly this will open the door for competitors. Bad mistake Microsoft!
November 6th, 2007 at 12:42 pm
Dapete -
Thanks, might be a clue! I’ll investigate further.
Jim -
Well put! The fact that an Office 2003 user can’t open the damn file is just pathetic, but I expected no less from Microsoft, did you? Yes I do think this fiasco software opens the door to a competitor, likely Google Docs.
I’ll bet 10 years from now, we’re all saying, “Remember Microsoft Office?” if not “Remember Microsoft?” LOL
November 8th, 2007 at 7:18 pm
I gave MS Office 2007 two weeks. I spent more time looking for menus than working.
Office 2007 is being uninstalled and replaced with OpenOffice 2.3.
If Microsoft had just given us the option of using classic menus I may have given it more of a chance.
November 9th, 2007 at 6:34 am
Thanks for commenting -
Open Office huh? I haven’t used that for years, but I’m thinking that the Google Apps will likely become the defacto standard, and be most widely adopted.
Yep, a classic interface would have been great. I think that stupid interface was yet another nail going into the Microsoft coffin that’s slowly being built.
November 12th, 2007 at 5:27 pm
I would have loved to sat in on user acceptance testing for office 2007 and watch perfectly productive people in Office 2003 reduced to tears looking for something as simple as Thesaurus. It is awful. It is 90% useless crap you would never need and you can’t find the 10% that you do actually use. I’m buying a Mac.
November 14th, 2007 at 2:21 am
Thanks Scott for taking the time to share your experiences. After reading yours, and hearing numerous other people share their problems too, I’ll post-pone using Office 2007 until after I either Retire, or die.
dp
December 14th, 2007 at 2:20 pm
Just got Office 2007 on a new PC for a new job. What a nightmare!
Just when I’m trying to get in sync with my new job, work, colleagues, etc. I have to learn a whole new interface. My problem today is figuring out how to design forms in Access. I’ve been doing them for 10+ years and now I can’t seem to move one field at a time. I won’t even mention the “ribbon” of pain as a menuing system in this and all other apps. I’m just glad I don’t have to support users right now. Ugh, ugh, ugh!
December 14th, 2007 at 5:00 pm
Yep Babs, nearly every week, i find something else to hate.
Thanks for the input Writerdesigns - Mac might be a choice for OS, but still gotta run some sort of office apps!
March 25th, 2008 at 3:14 pm
After 6 months of frustration and reduced productivity, I am un-installing office 2007 professional and re-installing office xp professional. Microsoft no longer follows good GUI design practices with too many colors, too many fonts, too many large icons (rather, too many pictures) and very poorly placed commands within a non-productive menu system. Instead they have created GUIs that were meant for those who can’t remember where they saved their pictures or for those who can’t navigate through simple menus. - I want my money back.
March 25th, 2008 at 3:48 pm
Yep Olley, I can’t say I blame you. I’m going to be moving towards Google Apps myself soon, but need to break the Outlook addiction!
April 4th, 2008 at 5:08 am
I am uninstalling Microsoft Office 2007 right now and my MS Office 2003 is ready. It really sucks, the new format (.docx) sucks big time its not compatible to other MS Office versions. That is plainly STUPID!!
April 4th, 2008 at 9:31 am
Glad I found this oasis of sanity - I thought I was the only one. I am a huge Microsoft fan, an actual MS bigot you might say, but Office 2007 sucks, sucks, sucks, sucks, sucks. I use a number of PCs at work, and daily this upgrade causes me to gnash my teeth. I can’t express how much I hate it, and because people are ugrading all around me I will eventually be forced to upgrade on my own desktop, the last bastion of common sense software design. Whoever signed off on this redesign is a jackass.
April 4th, 2008 at 10:42 am
Jopskie and Dan - thanks for commenting, and I couldn’t agree more. I’m going to make it my mission to be Office free sometime this year. Have you had t ofind “character count” yet in Word? -
(Review tab - Proofing group - the teeny abc123 icon square)
April 14th, 2008 at 2:11 am
Hi Scott,
Thanks for your post. I founf it while with tears in my eyes yesterday noon…
The IT people here installed my new PC and didn’t even ask me if I want Office 2007 or not, they simply put it there.
So now, casual tasks I’m used to do - take me forever.
I found some other things in the last 24 hours, since I started using Office 2007, that simply drive me crazy:
1. The flags in Outlook - well, you’ve mentioned that.
2. The Styling popup that appears in Excel whenever I right click somewhere… am I the only person bothered by it…? Why don’t I have the option NOT to display it…? My eyes always jump to it, although I hardly need to use any of the buttons there… errgrggjhh…
3. I have some charts that I update daily, by adding a row to the range, that is sometimes splitted.
So let’s say my range is:
=Sheet1!$A$1:$A$5,Sheet1!$C$1:$C$5
And now I want to add row 6 to it.
I right click the chart, select “Select Data…” and then try to move with the keyboard right or left in the range box, to get to the “5″ and change it to “6″… ha ha… MS is laughing at me… this doesn’t work anymore.
So let’s say I select with the mouse the first “5″ and change it to “6″, then click the “END” key, so I will get to the end of the range and change the second “5″ to “6″, but hey - the “END” is not working here anymore…
And that’s not all - If I try to change the range of a chart that was created in office 2003 - the mouse scroll wouldn’t work for a while, after I confirm the change… so how do I get to the next chart you ask? Right, I have to manually hold the scroll bar on the right, and drag it down…
I used to do this daily, as part of my job, and it took me 2 seconds! Now it forces me to use the mouse, and gives me headache (and I’m pregnant, after all…)
sigh. sigh. sigh.
4. As for the Ribbons - I hate them…!
Is there no option to set it to diplay smaller icons at least?
Or - customize the ribbon’s tabs to display what I usually use…?
Luckily, I found this tool, and I think I’m going to ask to buy it ASAP:
http://www.addintools.com/english/menuexcel/default.htm
5. In Outlook - why cann’t I add the “Calendar” under the “Mailbox” main node? I used to have it in 2003, but now - I can’t…?
6. In Outlook - I was used to colorful flags… Now I have to separately select a flag and a “category” if I want the colors back - why are the 2 damn steps needed? and why every mail I flag now - becomes a TASK…? What…? Why?
7. As I still work with the very complex Excel sheets I created back in good old office 2003 - I now occasionally get a message that a feature I’ve selected is not supported in older versions. But, hell - what have I selected??? I don’t even know what I’ve done that cause this warning, and I do not know what may get lost when 2003 users will open this worksheet and use it…
This is so frustrating…
I will give it a chance of a few more days, but I have a bad feeling I’m going to ask to go back to Office 2003 very soon…
Thanks for listening,
Karin.
April 14th, 2008 at 8:08 am
Best of luck Karen - I feel your pain.
Wow! Please do provide some feedback on that add on if you buy it! That might be well worth having…
*update: there’s apparently a version to get classic menus for all of Office 2007 - I’ve not tried it, but may… If anyone does, please leave feedback
April 14th, 2008 at 4:26 pm
Google or Open Office products are not an alternative for me because I use many VBA macros with Excel. And since I need to support users of both Office 2003 and 2007 I need to use the 2007 version.
But I never save in the new format, I always save as .xls and work in compatibility mode.
I lose some new features while working (for example the sheet is smaller) and other while saving (for example the new auto-filters are not saved), but overall it works well.
Ribbon vs toolbar + menu
1) Menus have a name, a standard order across all the software (MS and others), a set of standard keyboard shortcuts, a useful hierarchical organization, easy to use for both beginners and experienced.
Toolbars have a standard size, can be turned on and off, moved where you like them, customized adding/removing buttons, created from scratch.
Ribbons… suck.
2) With a 2003 toolbar you can click on the arrow button to show the list of borders, then you can either click on one button to apply a style or you can drag the little pane and create a new temporary toolbar, very useful when you work on many borders or insert many shapes or change many colors in the next 2 minutes.
With the ribbon… no way. It takes me 5 the average of five clicks to do one Excel 2003 click. That is on average five time slower!
3) Menu and toolbars are there to stay. If you change the Excel window size, the less used buttons will temporarily disappear and nothing else will change.
With the ribbon you need to learn for each button different versions. For example the Wrap Text button can appear with icon+text, only icon half height, only icon on third of the height.
4) Menu and toolbar are well organized, commands are where it makes sense.
Since it is impossible to organize stuff in the ribbon then some commands are duplicated (sort is both in the right of the home and in the middle of the data ribbons), and they have different icons, perhaps just to make it more difficult to learn and remember them.
5) Shift+F1 and click on a menu item or a toolbar button and you used to get a nice and clear help page.
Not only the ribbon loses this feature, but the help in Office 2007 is just horrible. I gave it up using it because it takes longer to find out what the page you are reading is about (it is just one big Office help, not Excel help + Word help + etc.) than figuring it out by my self. And I also have the feeling that they cut a lot of stuff from the good old help. Now it’s just useless.
Usually the upgrade to the new version of a software is hard because the new version has new features, new file format, new hardware requirement, etc., and this is the case also for Excel 2007, but it doesn’t bother me much.
Usually the new version comes with new bugs, and this is the case also for Excel 2007, but it doesn’t bother me much.
The most frustrating part is the loss in productivity caused by the new stupid ribbon (this bothers me a little), and the so stupid decision to remove the standard menus and toolbars.
I have to go now, good, it was getting too long.
Thanks for reading,
Stefano
April 15th, 2008 at 6:22 am
And here’s one more little thing that is simply driving me crazy:
I’m used to send mails by using the ALT+S shortcut. This worked well in Outlook 2003 when I was writing mails both in English and in Hebrew.
But now, using Outlook 2007, when I type Hebrew mails (which are about 30-40% of my sent mails) and I try to send them with ALT+S - it simply does nothing!!!
The mail is not sent.
I have to switch to English, using LeftAlt+Shift, and then I can send it as I’m used to.
Or - I can use the mouse, but I’m not used to that in this case (but since when MS cares about what I’m used to…?)
How annoying is that, ha?!
Karin.
April 24th, 2008 at 2:56 pm
i hate microsoft’s office 2007………..i want the old xp verson but i have vista instead and can’t install it, please someone help me……..this program is driving me crazy.
April 25th, 2008 at 12:37 am
hmm… I can’t help much…
I eventually went back to Office 2003.
I couldn’t stand the changes in Office 2007.
If you have this option - I would go for it.
June 2nd, 2008 at 12:07 pm
I’m fairly competent in Excel and I did find a way to crete a custom tool bar at the top of the page under the F***ing Ribbon — BUT — over the years, I’ve created a standard [for me] toolbar on the left side of the screen. I updated said toolbar everytime I got a new version of Excel — now I’m pissed. What a waste of time — a friend who teaches software at a local college has had to create a whole course just on the the stupid Ribbon.
July 21st, 2008 at 1:57 pm
My latest gripe with Office 2007 is that I designed a spiffy PowerPoint presentation using the default font (Calibri), accessed it on a system not running Office 2007, and all the text was too big & didn’t fit on the slides. Had to change the font back to Arial to get it to look right.
July 31st, 2008 at 4:02 pm
I have been using the Kubuntu distribution of Linux for almost a year now, and was getting spoiled by OpenOffice.org’s office suite. However, at work, we just recently downgraded to Office ‘07. My job is all of a sudden much more difficult, all thanks to the inflexibility and poor design of this software. It’s beautiful to look at, but as efficient as a yacht on land. If our computers had a little bit of a slow responce before, but now, it’s almost intolerable.
Of course, now I have the pleasure of stretching my legs while waiting for a document to open. Um…Thanks for that, MS. Sure, I get less done, but at least my screen looks flashy when it’s loading. I wish I could convince my organization to use Linux. Then, at least, hardware issues would not be a problem, and I could take a walk anytime I wanted to- not because my documents were loading, but because I would already be done with my work.
August 4th, 2008 at 3:05 pm
AHA - When you “lose your ribbon”, and “auto fades” on you, just double click the menu item name and the ribbon comes back permanently. This was driving me crazy for over a week…