I have a VM with O2k7 in it just because work requires that I send in the new file format. I really hope that when we (my company) moves from Lotus to Outlook that I can use “menus”. If not then I’ll be installing Evolution to replace my Outlook client.

There is one thing I found very beneficial about the MS Ribbon bar. It put commands all over the screen that most of my colleagues were too LAZY to go and find/read up on/press F1 for in 2003. They now think that all of the features they are “finding” are NEW….so usability is better for the lame users. We power users….might just have been lost to MS.

Are they planning on a return to menus…. PLEASE MICROSOFT!!!!

Try finding the Insert Columns command for example (it’s now called Insert Sheet Columns), and then then enjoy scrolling down past 201 other commands before you find its partner, the ‘DELETE Sheet Columns’ command and then double click or point and click on ADD to see it next to your previous selection, in the right place on the QAT (hopefully). This kind of approach for customizing toolbars is a throwback to the 1990’s. Lotus had an almost identical method for their office suite – using a vertical bar to represent a horizontal one, clicking AT LEAST twice for every addition (or deletion for that matter, and that’s not including any scrolling you HAVE to do) etc. etc. – It’s simply not user friendly – whatever happened to ‘Drag n Drop’?; were Microsoft developers paid for every additional Mouse Click they could introduce? Is the plan to eliminate ease of use and genuinely useful functionality as far as possible and leave 3rd parties to fill the gap – at additional cost to the original product?

The QAT in Excel is also only permanently displayed as one line, cannot be split and certain commands (e.g. paste formatting) have lost their icon being replaced by what I can only describe as a ‘blob’ – WHY? oh why?

I shouldn’t go on… I feel the need to lie down in a darkened room for a while.

Ribbon, Excel 2007?… Hate ‘em, hate ‘em, hate ‘em.

The new ribbon is a productivity killer. I have used Office for close to 12 years and I routinely spend 5 to 20 minutes searching for functions on the ribbon that I had memorized in the old-style menus. Every change is not an advance.

Microsoft is not encouraging customer loyalty much less satisfaction by making these sweeping changes and providing long-time customers no option.