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
I wrote a blog post about this already, but it REALLY bothers me. After going for years with my “flag status” appearing in the top left pane of my window, Microsoft has decided to move it to the right side by default, and the ability to relocate it is “broken”. This is stupid. Fix it Microsoft.
2. Program overhaul – One Note
I’ve used office One Note 2003 for quite awhile now, for keeping track of client projects and information. It’s quite useful for me as a project manager, because it’s simple, and I really didn’t have to think much about learning to use it.
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
Day three I woke up to find a message on my screen “Change calendar time zone”
Here’s what it said -
A change has occurred from (GMT -08:00) Pacific time (US and Canada) to (GMT -08:00) Pacific time (US and Canada)
Updating personal folders from (GMT -08:00) Pacific time (US and Canada) to (GMT -08:00) Pacific time (US and Canada)
What? Oh well…
Since I have a 5 user license, I have seen that on all three PC’S, too.
4. Slower and more sluggish than you think
Although it was to be expected, office 2007 is slower, way slower, and uses much more of my RAM, nearly double Outlook version 2003.
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?
In the past, I could right click on the e-mail address of someone in a mail message, and choose Lookup – Outlook contact. When I attempt to do that now, I’m greeted with a message saying that is not possible. It says – “cannot perform the requested operation. The command selected is not valid for this recipient”.
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:
Is not part of your domain.
Is not listed in the LDAP.
Is not a member of your Exchange Server.
Has not granted you the necessary permissions to view their calendar.
To avoid this error message, use the Open Calendar command only if the user is using Exchange Server. If the user uses Exchange Server and you still encounter an error message, ask the user for the appropriate permissions to view their calendar. If they are not part of your network, you will probably not gain access to their calendar.
For more information see the Microsoft knowledge base article and gives a link.
THEN – Clicking on the link gives this -
The Knowledge Base (KB) Article You Requested Is Currently Not Available
The article you are looking for is currently not available. Please try one of the following options for assistance: Suport Home, Customer Service and other MS links. UNREAL.
You’ll notice that the error message I get says
“…when you attempt to view the CALENDAR for a user…” which is not what I chose.
But all I did was choose to “view CONTACT” in my own sincgle user Outlook! sigh.
7. Mystery Mail Arrival
Mail does not consistently show up in my inbox automatically after a send and receive.
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?
Microsoft Word refuses to save occasionally, citing “not enough memory available” error. This is crap.
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
For over 15 years now, (wow) the world has been been used to standard command menus being across the top of the window in Microsoft Excel and Microsoft Word, and pretty much all software windows in general.
“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
Occasionally lately, clicking on a link in an e-mail leads to an error box popping up…
“Microsoft office outook”
General failure. The URL was “http://www.turbols.com/”. The system cannot find the file specified.
OK
There’s a link for “was this information helpful”, but all that did was thank me and disappear.
Dear Microsoft,
The reason you can not “find the program” is because it’s a link and not a program. It’s clearly a link, and my friend did indeed type it correctly.
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
I wanted to use the feed burner headline animator for my signature, but Office 2007 longer lead you to your e-mail signatures with HTML directly from the program.
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 –
Things I have always hated about Office that they still haven’t fixed.
1. Still cant sort your “favorite” mail folders alphabetically (sort by name)
2. Still can’t view a folder inside of another favorite folder
3. Still cannot jump to an alphabetized list of folders by typing more than one character. For example, typing ’sm’ will jump to your S folders, and then to the M folders, instead of to the sm folders.
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…
UPDATES:
Here’s another one -
Outlook Won’t Allow Permanent Access to Files
I recently had to allow a program (Dragon Naturally Speaking) to access my files, and this warning kept popping up.
According to Microsoft “in general, you cannot prevent this from happening”. Nice.
They also say this – “You should not get this message if your synchronization software is a trusted add-in that can properly identify itself to Outlook as a safe program”
What does that mean? It means they pay a fee to Microsoft – a large one, no doubt.
While I’m not opposed to the warning, LET ME CHOOSE MORE THAN !) MINUTES! I needed access for hours, necessitating multiple clicks, every 10 minutes. And if I didn’t click? The progress stopped.
Here’s the “warning” and here’s where they’ve known about it since Office 2003
Update: Summer 2009
Here’s a free trial of an Office 2007 “add-on” that gives you back everything you’d grown to know and.. “tolerate”, if not “love” 
about the old Office menus that were in use from the 1990’s right up until 2007.
It’s called “Classic Menus”, and It’s become quite popular. so much so in fact, that they’re already working on the version for Office 2010. Try the demo!
*** Update 10/2009
UNDO (Ctrl-Z) does not work if you mark something as “Not Junk email while inside the junk email folder.
Instead, the action BEFORE that gets “undone”. In my case, that action was to UNdelete about 150 at once, after picking my way through them to choose deletion in the first place. Sigh… I’m sure 2010 will be fine though….
This ad was on during the Yankees Angels game last night, and could easily apply to MS Office too… Great ad
Other stuff I've written:
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Keith Cirelli says:
This guy nailed in right on the head. After 15 years Microsoft screwed up a time tested winner. Everything is different!! It’s like the made some business decision to change it so that everyone that actually depends on MS Office to get their work done HAS TO take a class to get as proficient as they were based on the last 15 years of MS Office. Someone at Microsoft probably thought..”Hey, we can ALSO get kick backs on all the classes people with have to take, because they’ll get so frustrated they’ll be ready to throw their PC against a wall” (or something like that). So not only are the selling this retched application, they’re likely get paid to high heaven for the classes people have to take. To the person/people at Microsoft that decided to change almost EVERYTHING in MS Office…you’re an idiot!! I’m moving to OpenOffice and will never look back at Microsoft! You suck…ya jack*ss
scott says:
I found this blog by googling something about office 2007 and how to change it back, plus the word “sucks”
This is new coke. Time tested, easy to use program that my mother was FINALLY figuring out how to use properly, now completely in the toilet. I am very computer literate and I am reduced to googling commands because I cant get this program to do simple things.
Office suite 2003 was near perfect, if you ask me. What were they thinking? How can they POSSIBLY consider this an improvement?
Kyle says:
The Ribbon is the worst change I have seen in my 25 years as a computer user. (I started using a wordprocessor in 1984 on an Atari 400) The Ribbon has destroyed my productivity. Practically every application I use has a Help drop down menu. The first time I used Excel 2007, it took me several minutes to find the dang help button!
The Ribbon takes up too much space. Some of the Icons are four times normal size and some are small. The Icons are arranged in a random order with headings for each section at the BOTTOM of the Ribbon. Why would anyone put a heading at the bottom?
Sometimes I wish the Computer Icon had never been invented. I am fluent in English, Spanish and French. My German is a bit rusty, but not too bad. I would much prefer words than Icons.
The Ribbon just defies imagination.
james says:
totally agree. I will keep 2003 or use open office. 2007 version is really stupid design.
Steve Fotos says:
I have made a major blunder by installing this awful package of office products on one of my computers. It has been a major source of many wasted hours in the last month, with more waste to come. How could any major company sell such a horrible product? Did ANYONE actually let an experienced user try this out before scrambling every useful menu item into a ribbon of confusion? I have been using office related products sine VisiCalc in 1982. This is the worst piece of crap i have seen in over 25 years of use. Way to go MicroDolts!
Johnny says:
Nobody seems to have commented on the clipboard fiasco that Scott Hendison mentioned as his #5 issue. It’s worse than Scott indicates. You’re in Outlook, say, and copy some text. The annoying clipboard panel shoulders over your window, but at least it’s showing the text was copied to the clipboard, right? Wrong! You open PowerPoint and say Paste. No, you try to say Paste but Paste is not available. Okay, you go back to the email which is still open and copy again. Go back to PowerPoint and say Paste. Now it works. Oh, I see. I didn’t have PowerPoint open before I copied from another program. My bad. Wait. I see now. I can go to the clipboard icon on the taskbar. Okay, but isn’t that the same thing as copying it again in terms of unnecessary work? Apparently something as basic to computing as the clipboard is no longer important to Microsoft. It should work. It doesn’t.
Scott says:
@JOHNNY –
You are the first person I’ve EVER heard of that’s also noticed this, but it IS REAL. I’ve seen it on 3 or 4 pc’s now even after reinstalls of Windows.
This is real, thank you, i’m not going crazy!
it’s really bad in Outlook – thats where I go nuts. I’ve said “Oh, I see” out loud before, but NOOOOO, the next time, all you “see” is that you were wrong! UNREAL…
Bob in Boston says:
I hate it. Everything takes ten times longer now. The copy and paste problem is ridiculous. I spent two hours this morning trying to paste a stupid Excel table into a Powerpoint slide. Nothing worked right. I finally ended up just retyping everything. I don’t give a sh*t about Sharepoint integration. I have a real job to do and Office 2007 is nothing but an obstacle.
Jason says:
I’ve been trying for two days to find the ADJUST ROW HEIGHT command in EXCEL 2007. I can’t find it anywhere!!!!!!!!
I’m going back to Office ‘97 (I still have it on CD here somewhere).
GAWD. Office 2007 STINKS.
Donna says:
I googled “I hate Microsoft Office 2007″ and got this. It is awful! I wish I had never bought it, but transferred to Vista – which is another story.
Phil says:
Hi everyone, found your site when googled “Hate Office 2007″ and yes, I too have been bought to tears by this beastly offering.
If Microsoft made cars, then they have gone from basic utility to having their own back seat driver. In 2003 the backseat driver climbed into the front seat and started giving over-helpful advice, but at least we could switch it off.
With Office 2007 the backseat driver has now got into the driver’s seat, and says it can drive the car better than I can. In fact I feel as if I am not needed at all, and I should stay where I am and let the car ’speed’ off without me.
Bye Bye Microsoft
PS Did you see that Microsoft are boasting that less people are pirating Vista than XP.
Can’t for the life of me think why.
Fara says:
I swear that’s not even funny. I literally WAS brought to tears.
When you’re in a super hurry and your expected to be on top of everything and you can’t get what was once the most minor of Office tasks completed, you might just lose out on an excellent opportunity.
Can you sue Microsoft for causing such undue stress with such a horrendous Office Version?
Scott says:
I can only imagine that as 2010 comes out, that it’s going to get worse…
Fara says:
It IS worse. It’s ‘07 with Whipped Cream and Cherries on top. It’s just about as frustrating. I SO dislike everything bubbly and smoothed out about XP and Vista, that every chance given to make it look “Classic” I take.
I’m totally Old School Windows and I’m damn proud of it!
Melody says:
Fara – I really felt for you. I started using it on the fly, too, and under pressure. Take a look at my tip for getting through that if you haven’t figured it out already. I don’t want to waste space Scott’s blog explaining it, but the short of it is, you put all your most common commands on the bar at the top until you figure out where the heck things are. http://tribeofadmins.com/who-loves-office-2007 about 3/4 down if you need it.
I’ve really enjoyed this post – it’s nice to see I’m not alone out there!
RShanahan says:
Every time I have to download something important, it’s a f***ing Word 2007 file. In December I tried to open a 50th birthday invitation: Word 2007! Today I tried to download a file I need tomorrow: Word 2007. I can’t use other computers because they have Word 2007 and it takes me an hour to type a 5 minute letter because I have to figure out everything in Word 2007. If I were a corporate executive, I’d kill everyone at Microsoft because of the lost productivity in not only compatibility issues, but in having to retrain so many employees to use the new fancy ribbons instead of simple, straightforward menus.
tony says:
I’ve had exactly the same allergic reactions to Office 2007 “new improved interface”. I wasted 3 hours looking for formatting options, in one night, trying to write a report in Word and Excel 2007, that I already knew where they were located on the classic menu. I too wanted to cry.
We know who to blame though. The following is an article in the sydney morning herald and it looks like she’s going to force this garbage on the rest of microsoft software.
Microsoft, if you’re watching I’ve already ordered Sun’s staroffice and in future we are moving to linux boxes where we can.
———————————
Meet Microsoft’s antidote to Vista
April 20, 2009 – 3:33PM
Microsoft’s Julie Larson-Green.
Microsoft’s Julie Larson-Green.
Julie Larson-Green hopes you’ll like Windows 7. If not, well, now you and a billion other people know who to blame.
Microsoft is counting on Larson-Green, its head of “Windows Experience,” to deliver an operating system that delights the world’s PC users as much as its last effort, Vista, disappointed them.
She’s in charge of a wide swath of the system, from the way buttons and menus work to getting the software out in January as scheduled.
Given Microsoft’s history, Larson-Green’s plan seems downright revolutionary: Build an operating system that doesn’t require people to take computer classes or master thick manuals.
“We want to reduce the amount of thinking about the software that they have to do, so that they can concentrate all their thinking on the task they’re trying to get done,” Larson-Green said in an interview.
Microsoft relies on Windows for half its profit, which helps fuel money-losing operations like the pursuit of Google online. Windows was still profitable after Vista’s 2007 launch, but its poor reception dinged the software maker’s reputation at a critical time.
Vista was designed for powerful, pricier PCs just as nimble rivals like Google were releasing web-based programs that could run on inexpensive computers. Microsoft appeared to be clinging to an endangered world order that spawned its operating system monopoly.
What’s more, Vista’s initial incompatibility with many existing programs and devices, and its pestering security warnings, exposed Microsoft to ridicule in Apple commercials that helped Macintosh computers gain market share. Businesses didn’t give up Windows, but many delayed upgrading to Vista.
Microsoft’s executives have since distanced themselves from Vista, acknowledging its flaws. Now the company needs Windows 7 to widen that distance even more.
You probably don’t know her name, but if you’re using Office 2007, the sleeper hit of the Vista era, you’re already familiar with Larson-Green’s work.
She was the one who banished the familiar system of menus on Word, Excel and other programs in favour of a new “ribbon” that shows different options at different times, depending on what a user is working on. It seemed risky, but it was grounded in mountains of data showing how people used the software.
Focusing on real customers might seem obvious, but Microsoft’s programs more often have reflected the will of techie insiders.
One reason is that Windows’ dominance relies heavily on third-party software developers who keep churning out compelling new programs. To give those developers as many options as possible for reaching PC users, over the years Windows spawned confusingly redundant features.
For example, you can tweak antivirus software settings by opening the program; by clicking on shortcuts from the desktop, task bar or “Start” menu; by responding to notifications that pop up uninvited from the bottom-right corner of the screen; or by poking around in a control panel.
Another bit of dysfunction stemmed from Microsoft’s corporate structure. Windows employs thousands of people divided into groups that focus on search, security, networking, printing – the list goes on.
With Vista and earlier versions, each group built the best solutions for its isolated goals. For example, two separate groups added similar-looking search boxes to Vista’s control panels and its Start menu. Yet typing the same query into both boxes produced completely different results.
Larson-Green, a 16-year Microsoft veteran, grew up in tiny Maple Falls, Washington, about 220 km north of the software maker’s headquarters in Redmond. She waited tables to put herself through Western Washington University, then took a job in 1987 answering customer support calls at Aldus, a pioneering software company in Seattle.
During six years at Aldus, Larson-Green worked her way into software development and earned a master’s in computer science on the side. But she credits her waitressing and customer-service work for making her good at her current job.
“The primary things that help you create a good user experience are empathy, and being able to put yourself in the place of people who are using the products,” she said. “User interface is customer service for the computer.”
Larson-Green, 47, is engaging and eager in person – to the point that in one interview, she couldn’t keep from repeatedly interrupting her boss, Steven Sinofsky, as he sketched the history of Windows. But while giving product demos on stage, she lacks the showman’s panache that a surprising number of Microsoft employees display. At a developer conference last year, she seemed nervous as she showed off Windows 7’s new features.
Later, she explained that as a woman, she worried that honing the softer skills of marketing might prompt colleagues to take her less seriously as a technologist. Larson-Green has spent her Microsoft career working deeply on many Microsoft programs, including the Internet Explorer web browser.
When she landed in the Office software group a few years ago, Larson-Green was dubious that much could be done to improve the software, which dominates the market for “productivity” programs.
“I felt like it had been that way for a long time, (and) everyone was pretty happy with it,” she said.
Yet customers weren’t quite as happy with Office as they might have thought.
For years Microsoft had tested software with focus groups and gathered comments and complaints from customers. But around the time Larson-Green joined the Office team, Microsoft was trying a more precise way of garnering feedback. By deploying special software – with user permission – on computers running Office programs, Microsoft could track how people used their PCs day after day.
That helped explain one puzzle in Redmond: why Office users often asked Microsoft for features that were already in the software. The tracking data showed there were functions very few people had discovered deep in the menus and toolbars in Office.
More research and testing yielded a solution – the ribbon, which displayed different commands depending on what the PC user was doing. Then Larson-Green pushed Microsoft to get even more radical: to release Office 2007 without the hedge of a “classic mode” that would emulate the old look and feel for people who didn’t like the changes.
It worked. Just as Vista was a magnet for complaints, Office 2007 won accolades from software critics and regular users. Larson-Green proved she had the stomach to challenge a Microsoft legacy. Her reward? The assignment to help fix Windows. When Sinofsky was tapped to lead the Windows division, replacing retiring Jim Allchin, Sinofsky drafted Larson-Green to come along, in a new position created for her.
“Some people are great at having ideas, and (have) no discipline. Some people are great at discipline, not much at ideas,” Microsoft Chief Executive Steve Ballmer said in an interview. “She’s got both of those genes.”
Larson-Green’s team began with centralized planning, in contrast with the old culture that let Windows subgroups set their own agendas. For example, in the past, different groups worked on home networking. One group decided how Windows would share files among multiple computers at home; another group figured out how to get shared printers up and running. As a result, the steps for networking PCs and printers were inconsistent and harder for PC users to master.
As she did with Office, Larson-Green sought insights in a daunting mass of data.
Vista was the first version of Windows to include the remote-tracking software that had helped Microsoft hone Office, and nearly 11 million Vista users had let their PC activities be logged. Larson-Green’s team also surveyed more than 250,000 people around the world and showed other users prototypes, some as simple as sketches on paper.
From these billions of data points emerged big ideas that got boiled down into eight design principles. Larson-Green had them printed on folded slips of paper as reminders for everyone in the group.
Many of the principles come back to Larson-Green mantras of “user in control.” The team tried to build an operating system people could use without studying first, one that would let them get right to reading the news or sending email without dragging them down a rabbit hole of settings and configurations. A system with manners, not one that constantly interrupts with bubbles, boxes and warnings that, data showed, people ignored or raced to close.
The Windows groups agreed in principle but old habits often reared up. Many Windows teams still wanted to be able to create alert bubbles for their functions.
“We’ve probably talked to every team in Windows about, ‘No no no no, we don’t want you to pop your notifications. Windows is not going to use these notifications to tell users things,’” said Linda Averett, a Windows user experience manager.
Larson-Green is already planning Windows 8, though her team continues to tweak the Windows 7 user interface. Signs point to a possible release months ahead of schedule, though Microsoft still says the official plan is for January.
Microsoft’s marketing machine will pore over piles of charts to decide whether Windows 7 is a success. Larson-Green says her measure will be the conversations she overhears at Best Buy and comments posted by bloggers.
“I think people are going to like it,” she said. Her voice rose a few notes when she added, “I hope so.”
AP
Dave says:
I downloaded this POS because I wanted RSS feeds in Outlook. All I can say is WTF? How did one company get it SOOOOOOOO WRONG! Who is making these business decisions? Just because a developer can make a change does not mean the users want it.
This reminds me of MS Money another formerly fantastic application that gets worse each year as some developer who has never had any practical life experience keeps adding more unnecessary and unrequested bells and whistles that do nothing but hinder productivity. OK, I feel better. Now to uninstall and just use Google Reader for RSS. I would rather use MS Works than this.
Bryan Keating says:
A balanced view. Most reviews show a slavish uncompromising devotion the Microsoft alter.
After Wordstar & WordPerfect I took to Windows like duck to water. Likewise Lotus to Excel. Have been a staunch Microdoft USER (not worshipper) since. Was always open for change, UNTIL 2007. Different, yes; Pretty; yes. Functional; NO. That seems to be a common opinion.
Been trying to use the ribbon for 9 months, less and less impressed. Full of gizmo’s I don’t need, neccessary items buried under the psychedelic trash.
In 2003 I customised the toolbars and got what I needed with a single click In 2007 it is 2,3 or 4 click and search; “where is the sucker?” left and right over the pesky ribbon.
That “styles” occupies half of the Word ribbon is a constant irritation, likewise 6 of the 9 ribbons I have never used and normally make inactive in 2003.
2007 is a pretty toy for playboy nerds, not for working people.
My clients are the hard-fisted oil & gas majors, who all use 2003. They do not appreciate files in 2007.
I travel Europe visiting fabricators. Have only met two contractors who have been FORCED to use 2007 by enthusiastic managers who don’t need to use the software and are now cordially detested by one and all.
I dont like my Excel spreedsheets showing a consitant “minor-loss-of-minor-fidelity” nor the Word docs repeatedly being autosaved after “minor crashes”
I do not trust the 2007 stablity and don’t what to try the various conversions to classic. The system is unstable enough without trying to get smart.
That Microsoft has sold millions of Vista & 2007 is no wonder; the public has had it foisted upon then without option when buying a new computer.
If Julie Larson-Green keeps riding the ribbon band-wagon at Microsoft maybe I will retire.
Dave Brunner says:
Finally removed the POS that is Office 2007 from my PC and am back with 2003. I have persevered for the past 8 months as I will be expected to teach Office Applications using 2007 from this coming September – I will advising learners to stick with 2003. Top of my hate list is the Ribbon, closely followed by the inability to undock toolbars, something I use a lot when creating flowcharts using connectors.
I have tried to like 2007, really I have, but the final straw was trying to format my wife’s dissertation and create a TOC – it just went totally wrong (TU!). The new version is not designed for power users, it is designed to look pretty and be superficially easier to use, start to go in-depth and you begin to despair. I’m writing this in Word 2003 which loaded in under 1 second and is a welcome return after 8 months of frustration.
File compatibility is a non-issue as there is an Office2007 compatibility pack from M$ that will allow docx files to be read from and written to. I’m not sure how the staff at my college are going to cope, the students won’t have a problem as most of them have Vista/2007 anyway, so they won’t know any better. Bottom line – uninstall 2007 and go for 2003 or OpenOffice 3.
Lynn Ledger says:
Are they kidding? Why does Microsoft continue to go backward when it comes to intuitive ease of use? I have no list — it’s ALL a royal pain to use.
Colin says:
Bought 2007 two weeks ago. Can’t stand it – hate it, loath it and will scrap it and go back to 2003 next week. I’ve been happy using Office in its various guises for years and despite a few annoyances I’ve always got on with each upgrade. But 2007 is not about getting on – it’s just sheer hard work to use and even the few good ideas are ruined by silly things such as the utterly awful colour schemes and the inability to rescale that imensely annoying ribbon. Sorry, but I think MS has finally disappeared up its own fundamentals. Unless something better comes along, I’ll be off to suites anew once I can’t run 2003. They got my money this time, but once bitten….
Melody says:
LOL! I was so frustrated that I wrote an entry about this myself, mostly around your number 9. (http://tribeofadmins.com/who-loves-office-2007 if you’re interested) The changing of the basic “language” of software as we know it infuriated me, as did the incredible sluggishness of the programs and the constant prompting once you’d saved backward. I ended up having to change back to 2003 and I will say this: I discovered that I had been getting used to the changes. Just as a bit of encouragement for those are stuck with it, you know – we do adapt…eventually. And perhaps it will make you all feel better to know that the Mac Version – Office 2008 – is even worse.
Dave says:
I bought a new computer from Dell recently which had office 2007 installed — what a terrible mistake! Microsoft engineers must have been laughing when they thought about the millions of hours of wasted time as they try to figure out where the diabolical Microsoft torturers put things. There are many things to hate, but the worst is the Ribbon, which takes up 1/3 of the screen and finding what you want is an exercise in frustration. I ended up putting some icons on top manually and minimizing the Ribbon, but it keeps coming back. The last straw is when I was trying to explain to my Mom over the phone how to change the font color, but we gave up because she couldn’t find it. I’m uninstalling this ASAP and going back to Office 2003. I am also now shopping for a Mac, I’ve had it with Microsoft, their ever-worsening products and their contempt for their customers.
Nathan says:
“By deploying special software – with user permission – on computers running Office programs, Microsoft could track how people used their PCs day after day.
”
Few knowledgable user would ever allow this, so they based their improvements on “users” who probably click “YES” to everything that pops up on their screen. I’ve had Office 2007 since it’s release and I still hate it. Still trying to use it when I have to bring work home…still hate it. I was hopeful that MS would have wised up and fixed this for their next release, but they did not. Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me, here I come, OpenOffice3
KB says:
All I can say is that I agree to hate Office 2007. Couldn’t believe all the people who agree… wow, can’t Microsoft read?? Now, I am trying to return to 2003 and can’t open my old documents! GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR. Any suggestions????
Melody says:
Really, about all you can do is reinstall 2007 and save your documents as .doc instead of .docx – or send them to a friend who has 2007 to save them backward for you. I had to go back to 2003, too, so I feel your pain.
Karin says:
Hi,
I went back to 2003 a while ago and I am able to open 2007 docs, including those with the .???x suffix, after I installed some compatibility pack for it.
I think it was automatically advised to me by MS, but I’m not sure anymore.
Anyway, I googled it quickly now, as I’m short in time, and found these links:
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/products/HA101686761033.aspx
http://kb.wisc.edu/cae/page.php?id=5635
Hope it helps,
Karin.
Melody says:
Oh, good point, Karin. I forget that some people actually have control over what they install on their computers. When you work in a big company, you don’t usually have that choice unless the company opts for it, but you’re absolutely right that if you’re using your own computer, there’s a simple solution.
Karin says:
I’m not running a private PC either, but these kinds of installs are not blocked from us.
Anyway, if such a problem exists – I highly recommend advising your system administrator about it before reinstalling everything, as this is a simple add-on from MS, and your system administrator should normally have no problem allowing you to install it.
John says:
I’ve now been using Office 2007 for a year (I have to, it’s what we get at work) and I STILL find myself clicking one tab of the ribbon to the other, wondering where they hid things. Why do you “insert” a header rather than “view” it? Why are commands you use in sequence scattered across different ribbons? I’ve used Office for years, and previous upgrades have caused a few days of confusion, followed by productivity. This one has been a complete nightmare, and it’s wasted hours of my time just trying to get work done.
Panos says:
Hi,
Windows has been dumped down. Only someone with no real computer knowledge and no programming experience would have opted for that cr*p ribbon, thank you Ms Larson. How about the fundamentals of Windows design, File, Edit, I learned that at Uni in 1994. They could have at least introduced that ribbon but leave the options the same, but no lets change everything!!
Same with Windows search. Before I had the perfect search screen, search for files over 5G, search for files amended today etc. What do they do? they make it like crap Mac that doesn’t give you any option, or to do advanced search you have to click 10 buttons. Microsoft should go back to fundamentals and care for the professionals first (they are they one who pay the feeds anyway). Not everyone who uses computers have an IQ of 80, not everyone cares about nice colours. I love sharepoint 2007 but I will never install 2007 (even thought I can get it for £8 through my employer). I may be forced to use it, but then I will probably write a longer post here!
Melody says:
I had to laugh at your comment, Panos. When I was first forced to use Windows, the thing that drove me absolutely nuts was how limited the search feature was as compared to Mac! In Mac’s Finder, I can specify *any* parameter using a pull-down for kind, size, date created, etc and specifying my search, the click a plus sign for more filters if I want them. We get used to and like what we like, don’t we?
I did get used to the advanced search function in the Office Suite, and was relieved to find that it’s still there – you just have to choose search and pull down a little further – past all that quick search stuff. I just use key commands so I don’t have to sift through that – when I can remember! Being a duel platform user makes key commands a challenge. It’s an annoying change – I agree with you.
Panos says:
Melody, apologies if I have misrepresented the apple file search, the very few times I used file search on a mac at my friend’s i didn’t have a good experience. Anyway, this is not a post PC vs mac. Windows used to have a very comprehensive search, why it has been downgraded is unknown. Probably cause the executives thought users are idiots and don’t understand. Anyway, I’ve actually vented my frustration to the MS Word Blog email address. See if they will reply back! I have a more sinister idea why microsoft messed up office, so that not many people use the new more open format and therefore can just say, you know what the public doesn’t like the docx format, lets forget about it and go back to the old office in 2013!!
Melody says:
I agree with you about the diminished capacity of the Windows search feature – I went berserk when it disappeared – I just want to make sure you know that the full advanced search feature is still there in Office 2007. It took me awhile to find it because you have to go deeper into the menu to get to it. I don’t use key commands much because I go back and forth between windows and mac and they have different commands (grrrrrrr), but if you’re only in windows, you can skip all those menus with the keyboard shortcut ( think it’s alt ctrl F, but I can’t remember and I’m on mac right now). Sorry if you already know this – I just want to relieve a fellow sufferer of any pain I can!
Phil says:
I would like to see Julie Larson-Green’s Wardrobe (She works at Microsoft – see point 11).
If its anything like windows folders, as soon as she opens the door she sees just a towel and a sheet, opened out, and then another towel – it would need to be a walk-in wardrobe as she would need to walk a long way to find the towel she wanted.
An observer may ask why she doesn’t fold them up and pile them up so that they can easily be found. Her reply might be that the house builders dictate that home owners don’t want that…
… besides she has done it in the past and the house builder nipped in to check the plumbing and the towels are all flattened out again.
Its strange (she adds) but everyone makes that comment.
Mike says:
“Larson-Green, 47, is engaging and eager in person…” – engage this
B!TCH…
all I want to do make a chart out of two columns of info. One column is a set of year numbers.
I am an engineer and a lawyer, and my colleague is also a lawyer and a doctor of neurology.
Together we could not (and still have not) figure out how to make one column of info the Y-axis of the chart.
When you try and get help from the program, it takes you online (not always available) and makes you join underground societies of software developer, or alternately makes you insert the bloody applications install code (or something to that effect). For GODS SAKE all I want is a tiny bit of info!!
I tried to get to an alternate helpline by going directly to the microsoft website – but was told that it would cost me $75!
Come ON MS!!
The people that brought out Office 2007 and their help functions should be shot and then fired!!
Scott says:
I don’t think the language is really necessary, but on the other hand… Hey, Ms. Larsen-Green, do you see how ANGRY people are?!?
David says:
Mother *(&*&^&^$$##@@$&**!!! This is pissing me off! And I got this when they “upgraded” everyone at work (didn’t ask for my vote). Only thing irritating me more than trying to find the freakin’ “view in classic” option is reading Ms. What’s-her-face congratulating herself on being so “bold” as to disallow the “select classic view” option so as she can force people to use what she knows is best for them, as opposed to what they think is best for them in their small pea brains. Who the H made you the decider of my freakin’ computer! I HATE MICROSOFT! But at least I have this gay light blue border to my windows now, even after selecting “windows classic view” in my XP display settings. Have avoided Vista so far, but can’t wait for the next upgrade. Maybe they’ll just put all the menus in heiroglyphics (sp?) as they have determined that to be the most efficient language, and we should all learn it anyway. Anyway to talk my company into using ANY software other than office 2007 or any other new MS products? Might just go to the abacus for improved productivity. I hate this. (Did I mention that already?)
Nola says:
Thank you for understanding my frustration with Office 07 – I thought it was just me. I have been typing & wordprocessing for 35 years and love Office 03 and then I get introduced to Office 07 and thought man – did Microsoft ask wordprocessors what they wanted when they were developing 07 – what were they thinking? Why fix what is not broken – Thank the Lord that my main computer at work has Office 03 on it – I only use Office 07 when I really have no choice. I mean what a joke – would you believe I had trouble insert a line in Excel 07 – I was thinking to myself “Am I stupid or something, Ive been doing this for years, what am I missing – I gave up in the end” Shame Microsoft – go back to the Office 03 format please
Phil says:
Document Size
If I take a 68Kb 2003 .DOC file, open it in Word 2007 and then save it as a .DOC file it makes it a whopping 194Kb.
This has just happened with my CV, so it is now too large to upload into some job sites.
(Interestingly saving it as a .DOCX file makes it 70Kb. Have Microsoft no shame!)
Grrr.
Phil says:
Spell Checker
I created as a DOCX document which I quickly saved as DOC to allow the rest of the world to read it.
The spell check then wouldn’t work. When I unticked the box to turn it off (yes the logic is reversed) it was ticked again next time I checked the box.
This only happened in part of the document, but still many pages of straight text.
The Microsft help goes into great detail on how to edit the registry to turn on the spellcheck feature. It never asks if the spell check was working elsewhere before suggesting this drastic course of action.
Unfortunately there is no flashing light to show that the spell checker is not working.
Phil says:
Folder lists
Can anyone suggest how I fix the folder listing so that it gives the details of the files in a straight list EVERY TIME I open the folder?
I have found out how to fix it sometimes in Explorer, but crucially when opening files in Office or attaching to emails, I always get a view of a few identical Icons crammed into a small space.
Every user I have ever watched use 2007 immediately sets the view to DETAILS. This time wasting may be repeated 100s of times a day.
The most annoying by far is SMALL ICONS which looks like DETAILS – except that 2 out of 3 files are missing from the first column. Just when you think you are cracking up (“I’m sure that I just saved that important file here!!!!”) you realise that the file you want is in a column that the window isn’t displaying, despite having the right column headers.
Bring back XP
Julia says:
I’m glad to see it’s not just me. The missing link that makes me the craziest about Office 2007 is the Help tab. Where is it? Or am I not supposed to seek help? I can’t even type a letter anymore because there is no letter wizard. Thank God I remembered ctrl P is the macro for print. I couldn’t find the print tab for the longest time. I finally found it, by accident. When we bought our new Dell computer, it didn’t come with a MS Office 2007 manual. Why should it? You aren’t supposed to know how to use MS Office 2007. Someday Karma is going to come back and bite Microsoft in the backside for this one.
Melody says:
Or in the wallet, hopefully.
Julia, you may know these two things already, but in case you don’t”
- Help is that little teeny question mark on the right of the list of panes – the menu bar.
-I circumvented a lot of annoyance by adding my most common tasks to that little icon bar in top right. If you don’t know how, check my post about 2007 (http://tribeofadmins.com/who-loves-office-2007) – I had a HUGE icon bar until I started getting used to where things were, but it was worth it.
I don’t have a PC at the moment, but I *think* the letter wizard is still there, on the “mailings” tab.
Good luck!
Melissa says:
MS Office 2007 is wasting so much of my time, I feel my blood pressure rising whenever I have to use it! I got a new Dell cheapo work computer a few weeks ago and the so-called “upgrade” to MS Office 2007, and I am still angry whenever I use it– why did they change terminology and hide commonly used functions? I have never been an MS fan, but Office 2007 is extremely user antagonistic. I am even more in favor of open source development now. We could all save A LOT OF MONEY if we all made the decision to not use MS Office, and maybe make MS create friendly, useful products.
Carol says:
Ugh, ugh, ugh. I too did a search for “Why I hate Office 2007″ and found this site. I’ve been running a word processing/desktop publishing service for over 17 years and use almost every feature of Word and PowerPoint every day. There is not enough room on this page to write all the reasons I hate 2007. It’s like getting into a new car and finding the steering wheel has been placed in the trunk. I can’t believe any serious Word or PowerPoint 2003 user is at all pleased with the changes. I bought 2007, but use 2003 almost exclusively now. But when a client requires me to use 2007, switching back and forth from 2003 to 2007 is a nightmare. It will take almost 10 minutes for 2007 to load while it reconfigures itself each time. I had a client sitting in my office waiting for me to print a simple 2007 file and it took forever for Word 2007 to open as both of our frustrations rose. And don’t get me started on the footer changes in PowerPoint. Ever open a Powerpoint file that was started in 2003, moved to 2007 and then reopened in 2003? The file size will explode, and all footers are no longer footers, but convert to individual text boxes on each slide — and when you’re working with 100+ page presentations it’s a nightmare. And finally Excel. I do not use it very often, but what is with that error message that keeps popping up every time I try typing in data for bar charts? Did anyone even test this software before letting it loose on the public? What were they thinking? The more they complicate things, the more I miss Windows 3.1, Office 97, and courier font — life was simpler then.
John says:
I never did like KoolAid, and I’ve never had anybody say “gee, my monitor is too big, can you give me a smaller one?”. Oh, and can you re-arrange the Word commands, and maybe even the basic toolbar structure, every now and then – having them stay in the same place gets so boring.
Office 2007 is slower, the Ribbon uses up more monitor area to no operational benefit, and rearranging the fundamental structure of a toolbar that we know well is simply moronic. It indicates a complete loss of the grasp of First Principles – except for those related to driving revenue for MS. Office 2007 stinks. I can only hope that the OpenOffice.org folks don’t get similarly stupid and drink the KoolAid; I would find that depressing, but I think I’ve heard rumblings. It must be a generational thing. I’m glad they’re not designing flight deck systems or airframe structures.
trevor says:
I hate it too. Office 2007 is a disaster, like Vista. That’s it MSFT, keep sticking it to the user. Good news for Apple, and I do enjoy those MAC vs PC ads.
I am trying Win7, but I prefer using Linux. It doesn’t fight you all the time. So many things are easier to do, and it keeps getting better.
trevor says:
OpenOffice.org is a good and free alternative. I’m looking forward to the new version coming out soon. Hopefully Oracle will keep developing it for a long time.
Dave Ziffer says:
You may be interested in my rant against wide-screen laptops, shiny screens, ribbons, and scatterbrained deconstructed menus at:
http://www.projectpro.com/letters/usability.html
It’s an attempt to put all this complaining together in a coherent way.
Michael says:
I trialed office 2007 back in 2007 and hated it, installed the Original Menus program and wondered why I would keep using office 07 instead of the speedier 2003, so I switched back. In December I upgraded 4 computers, and added two new PCs to our office, and tried VERY VERY hard to find a legit copy office 2003, but now I am stuck yelling, cursing, sending vulgar messages to microsoft about this damn ribbon again. I can figure out how to indent a bullet in a sub-list in a word document! I’m a friggin comp engineer, and used office 95, 2000 (best version in my eyes), XP, and 2003. Amazing that microsoft was able to screw up Windows XP AND Office 2003 in just one year. Luckily you can still get Windows XP for now, but I loathe office 2007. You nailed it – where are the shortcut keys that kept me working fast and efficient versus having to look things up online – I taught myself office 95 in a matter of weeks – where is the Switch To Classic Menus button? There is a damn button for everything else?!?!?!
Scott says:
“Help”
Why in the world would you hide a “Help” menu?
I too Googled “I hate Office 2007″ just to commiserate a little. This pile of crap raises my blood pressure every time I try to use it. I swear, it’s like swapping the brake and the gas pedal in a new line of cars.
Scott says:
What a great analogy!
Emily says:
At Christmas, among my visitors was a brother-in-law who works in upper management at Exxon-Mobil.
We discussed my woes with Office 2007 and I asked hime if E-M had upgraded to this version.
He said that E-M never upgrades unless there is a ‘business reason’ to do so.
Ergo, that huge world-wide corp is still using XP and Office 2003. The obvious costs of any upgrade include 1)the initial cost of software, 2) the use of ‘help desk’ staff to load new software on each computer, 3) creation of employee training classes, 4) down time for all staff [one presumes that everyone in the company with the possible exception of the grounds keepers uses production software and I suspect the grounds keepers even use computers], 5) further down time as staff adjusts to the new software.
I suspect that other large corporations, not to mention the government, have also maintained the older systems.
Bottom line: MS is killing the goose that laid their golden egg.
Me: I use WordPerfect which wisely keeps the word processor familiar and keeps Quatropro mirroring Excel 2003 and Presentations mirroring Power Point 2003.
As a writer with material in-print for more than 30 years, I can’t say enough about WordPerfect. The key life saving feature that I love is: REVEAL CODES — it lets me see exactly where a controllin code has appeared in a document so I can revise it.
And, when I insert a code such as ‘double-space,’ the entire document beyond the insertion point is then double spaced. When I want to revert to single spacing, I just insert a new code at the appropriate location.
With MSWord, I never know what is controling the appearance of the document and those stupid little paragraph markers are virtually useless.
Juan Fermin says:
Here’s another one, I have client that I’ve been upgrading 1 user at a time to Office 2007 (mostly so I can go over with the the differences and how to properly use it). EVERY time I upgarde another user, the new 2007 installation completely screws up the Calendar for all the users. It scrambles the Color codes and creates a TON of new categories.
James says:
If I use the black color scheme in Excel 2007, I get glaring white grid lines. I’d like them to be more subtle because I can hardly see the data in the cells. You can turn them off, or your can change their color for a given spreadsheet. Why can’t I change their color for all spreadsheets at once?
James says:
I use a table in my email signature because I need English on the left and another language on the right. In Outlook 2003, I could hide the lines of the table. Now I have to hide the table lines every time I compose a message. I Hate Office 2007 so much.