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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… 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
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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.
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
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.
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!
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
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.
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.
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.
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
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!
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!
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.
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!
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!!
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.
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)
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.
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
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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…
I’m an accountant and have used Excel for over a decade. With Office 2007 I have never been so frustrated. The first time I tried to make a chart, I highlighted the range like I’ve always done and clicked the chart button. I let it build the chart and then tried to figure out for the next 30 minutes how to get my header on the chart. It turns out that putting a title on the chart is actually on a different ribbon from the chart creation icon. How’s that for intuitive design? Then try to figure out how to delete or add a row to the chart. It used to be a simple right-click on the chart and you could go right in and tweak the settings. Not anymore. I’m an Office 2003 user for life until Open Office really hits its stride (hoping for 3.0).
Oak
Thanks Oak – Yep, this is the blog post that keeps on growing, isn’t it?
Just got forced into getting Office 07 at work. It has more cartoons than the Disney channel on a Saturday morning. The least they could do is let the user define their own work space. Is that too much to ask?
I wish I had read 2007 feedback first. I never imagined how horrible it is. I actually just wanted to upgrade to 2003, but that is not longer available in stores. I feel cheated and wish I could have a refund. All I do is try to figure out how to do what I used to do in 2003 at work and the XP version I had. I am exasperated and it doesn’t appear that Microsoft is listening.
DON’T UPGRADE TO 2007 UNLESS YOU KNOW WHAT YOU ARE GETTING INTO. If you like it fine, but if you buy it thinking you are getting an enhancement to 2003, THINK AGAIN!
I will also be looking for any alternative to 2007 in the future.
The ONLY way I will feel better is if Microsoft listens and offers a service pack that installs classic menus.
CLASSIC MENU OPTION FOR OFFICE 2007! Who is in favor?
Yes, Jarrod, I agree with you about the menus.
BUT my ace in the hole is that I have been using WordPerfect since it was a gleem in the eyes of a couple of MIT guys.
So, even though I have the 2007 MS Office, right next to it is WordPerfect Office suite.
As an example, I compose slide presentations in Corel Presentations and convert to Power Point.
The spread sheet application is not different than Excel and WordPerfect is a powerful word processor. Especially since I can ‘reveal code’ and find out what is controlling certain functions. If the font size changes, I can pinpoint the place in the document where the code was accidently introduced and then DELETE THE CODE. That then changes the whole document.
And Corel upgrades are not terrible difficult. The only thing I have done over the years is continue to use the CODE for the first keyboard that I learned with this program. It is a simple adjustment made under the Tools -Options button.
Love Corel — Hate MS Office 2007
I HATE (sorry for yelling) 2007! What were these idiots thinking? I’m trying to create a simple outline.
I’m taking this to my IT guy tomorrow and he can blow off this steroid dumb-ass version that is 2007. I’ll take another version 2003 or even 2000 that is simple and doesn’t take up so much space.
Hell, I’ll just put on openoffice on this and save my time.
I am convinced that the ribbon interface was designed so that illiterates may now use Office.
@john – either that, or it was designed to make others feel illiterate
I think you guys hit the nail on the head…I feel illiterate when I am using it and I can’t help but wonder who this software is being marketed at. It has been a long time since a program has made me fuming mad…this one does. I am out there looking for Office 2007 Classic menu add-ins…I found one that is okay, but it isn’t a true classic menu.
I think MS just needs to realize that lots of people hate the ribbon, and it their fault because they trained us for the past 15 years. If I could get a refund, I would trade my 2007 for 2003 immedidately.
Am I the only one who loves the new version of Office 2007?
I’ve been working with Office for the past 15 years and although there was a learning curve I find Office 2007 (since SP1) the best version to date.
I love the fact that in Outlook I can now create a task reminder for emails with the flag and the new ToDo Bar is great.
Also, the integration with SharePoint adds a whole new dimension to corporate use.
Dave, the subject here is “Things to Hate About Office 2007″, that’s why I listed a few points in my previous post.
I’m not saying Office 2007 is bad. For example I love many new things in the new Excel.
I’m saying that the Office 2007 guys must have smoked something rotten when they decided to remove useful, popular, good features from the software with no reason.
In office 2003 I could reach any command very quickly with the menu bar and my customized toolbars. In Office 2007 they decided to remove the menu bar and prevent you from customizing the toolbars, and created that slow, inconsistent, big ugly ribbon.
I have been working every single day with Excel 2007 for 1 year now, and still I’m much much much faster when I go back to an old computer with my old configuration.
Stefano
I just can’t believe what they have done with Office 2007.. and I can’t believe that they’re seriously going to leave it this way. It’s not intuitive and even now I’ve used it for several weeks I still can’t find many functions.. and hate it even more!
Does anyone know whether they’re listening and will change it back?
I doubt they’re listening, and I’ll bet 100-1 that they never change back – at least not until everyones used to it
I’m an MBA student and trying to run regression analysis. I did my undergrad in business & computer science and spent 5 years before going back to school working on excel and writing advanced modeling. My school has required us to use the new version of Excel and I’m still frustrated after using it now for 4 months.
It’s horrible! I used to make Pivot Tables in a matter of seconds, but the new version requires so many other steps. Ohh, and how awesome is it to have to switch tabs every three seconds. Thanks for the extra mouse clicks Microsoft! I’ll send my Carpal Tunnel Syndrome bill to Mr. Gates.
I would use the old version but now that every emails in the docx format even the conversions don’t work well.
I would tack this product as being as fantastic as Vista — OSX here I come!
Office 2007 has been a disaster for me. Hello Microsoft, are you listening? Office 2007 sucks. Why would you release a product with such a major loss in productivity. I’m your customer and I trust you. You let me down big time. I haven’t seen such a bad follow up since “Smart and SmartII” You better fix this or you are going to loose me and many more.
Help!
What the heck happened creating 2007. Microsoft needs to fire the Gucci coders and get someone in there that can appreciate the K.I.S.S principal. A word processor is a tool I need to do my work. It’s not something I’m going to spend time at learning all the rearranged features like it was some game. The old one wasn’t broke…stupid.
Bad news Bryan: it is not even worth learning again what you already knew. Even after learning and customizing the new interface you will never reach the same productivity. You can decide to work without any customization (as many users do) and it will take more clicks, or you can decide to customize your environment (as some expert users do) and it will still take more clicks. No matter what you do, the new version is less productive than the old one.
Office 2007 repeatedly brings me to a level of frustration and desperation that evokes the desire to physically harm those who brought it into the world. MS developers are insulated in their self-aggrandizing world, convinced their ideas and the dramatic changes will please the user community when in fact, it has damaged the brand. I can’t even find the frigging Help function. Funny that would be something that would be so hard to find. I really hate MS for this. I hate them for not making their SW intuitive, for turning upgrades upside down, for making it so hard to do what I need to do. I was hoping to get some release by venting but it’s not working.
Office 2007 seems to be made for the home user who has no computer experience whatsoever. It’s full of useless effects that slow it down to a slug’s pace and make doing my job harder. One size does not fit all. Most of us use “Office” in an office. We don’t need special effects, cartoons, or pretty colors. We don’t need our software to think for us. Just having to undo what the software thinks we want to do takes time. And forcing us to conform to a new toolbar and totally different command structure that we can’t even personalize is not only non-productive, it’s demeaning. It’s like being forced to use a playskool cell phone with big yellow and red buttons.
Access – display of query, table, etc no longer available in columns. This is just plain goofy, a needless and purposeless change that interferes with normal usage. Just to amplify, most of the changes in Office appear to be purposeless, goofy, stupid, etc.
I just installed the Classic Menu for Office 2007 from http://www.addintools.com and it’s marvelous. All the menus are back in Word the way they were in Office 2003. This doesn’t fix all of the problems with Office 2007 but at least I can find things again.
Thanks I’ve heard it’s good too – (I wish they had an affiliate program
– After all this time i’ve gotten used to it, and I’d hate t ochange at this point not because it’s better, just for efficiency sake.
My partner installed 2007 without consulting me and it has been the source of much frustration both in terms of trying to use it AND in terms of griping at each other!!!
When I open a new webpage and try to log into a site (eg Facebook, banking etc), there is a delay of many seconds before the system realises I am typing – or halfway through typing log in details, it realises it forgot to delay and so halfway through a password or log in, it delays – leaving passwords and log in details mising characters so therefore incorrect.
Partner tells me that this is a worldwide problem with 2007.
Can anyone comment on this,as I find it hard to believe that the whole world is not so annoyed by this that there hasn’t been a cry so loud we all hear it!!
Cheers from Australia!
Every time I start up my computer with XP and use one of microsoft programs, I mean any one, Excel, Word, Explorer and try to save or insert a file, as soon as I click on the browse triangle, start analyzing folders which takes a few minutes to do it, I do not know how to fix this problem if it is only a setting somewhere.
If this Microsoft people want to be productive, they should be doing something else in life than creating software.
Does anybody have reported all of this comments to them?, do they care about them?.
Whats up with powerpoints word art?
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
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?
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.
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!
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.
@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…
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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….