Office 2007

[johnridley]

Why yes, I DID just get a new machine on my desk, and they DID force Office 2007 onto it (small favors; at least they let me run XP instead of Vista).

Why is it, that if any other company did what Microsoft did to their interface with Office 2007, they would never have gotten the Windows logo approval, but when Microsoft does it, it's the zenith of innovation?

It wouldn't be so bad if there were some way to turn it off and go back. And it might not even be so bad if it changed EVERYTHING to work like that. No, the problem is that now Office works DIFFERENTLY than every other application on my machine. One of the whole points of Windows was that everything worked the same. Over the years, the only apps that I've actively hated were ones that broke the GUI standards. Office now moves from "just a tool" to "hated evil thing that I must tolerate to get my job done."

Luckily I only HAVE to use Outlook; for everything else there's OpenOffice. I guess it's time to try out Evolution for Windows.

If Microsoft is going to start breaking GUI compatibility every time they feel like they've smoked enough to believe that they've got a better idea, one of my major reasons not to be running Linux just went away.

Uh, the IT guys are digging in their heels and won't unblock Evolution, so I can't get out of Outlook that way. I guess there's always webmail. Dunno if that has any access to scheduling though, I've never used it much.

Comments

[billroper]

Try turning off the display of the ribbon -- then it won't appear until you click on it. That'll help.

I think there are also some 3rd party apps that will drop the previous Office menu structure back in place, but I've never used them.

[johnridley.livejournal.com]

I did that, but I really want the menu back. I actually have a solution; I think I'm going to put the old computer back in place. As long as the new machine is sitting here, they'll stop bothering me to replace it for a few years. I didn't need a new machine anyway, as when I allowed them to put a 2nd monitor on my desk, I just did it so they'd stop pestering me every few months.

[johnridley.livejournal.com]

Done. Single core 2.6 GHz, 2GB RAM 4 year old XP box back on desk, dual core 3.5 GHz 4GB RAM box sitting on floor, not plugged in. All is well again.