I'm glad others are having this reaction. To me it felt very much like a radical redesign for the sake of redesign. I haven't used it extensively but I haven't noticed a lot of new functionality. Just a lot of new frustration. Didn't help that I was trying to re-work my resume before sending it out last night. I cannot imagine the horror of trying to teach this travesty. I'm assuming they're trying to make it better match the browser experience (the new "Home" option) but it was completely unnecessary.

I'm beginning to understand why Office Home and Student is so cheap. It isn't because MS is trying a new pricing strategy; it's because otherwise they wouldn't sell it at all.

One of the reasons I am trying to figure out how to make Windows Explorer show me file extension (other than I'm a control freak and I want to know what the hell it is I'm opening) is so that I can verify I haven't saved a file in the *.docx format. I'm all of a sudden a LOT more understanding of my former colleagues in Germany who couldn't manage to send me files in the standard *.doc format.

Thanks. I wanted an iMac. I want to continue moving towards Mac. Alas, this was not the right time.

What's really crazy about it is that they didn't just step away from the standard Office interface, they stepped away from the standard ANY application interface. I mean, think about the applications you use regularly. How many of them have menus across the tope that include "File", "View", "Edit", and "Window", plus any specialized ones the app has? That's right, pretty much ALL of them. So this redesign of Office doesn't just make it harder for earlier Office users to figure out, it makes it hard for anyone used to ANY standard application to figure out. Hell, my newest version of Final Cut Studio, a VERY complex film editing software, follows the File/Edit/View/Window menu standard. New users picking it up have at least a SHOT at guessing where to look for something.

It's just stupid.

I agree with your assessment. It's bizarre software engineering. I'm assuming they think they're "trailblazing" the way forward where applications begin to meld with browsers. But even my Firefox browser still has the File/Edit/View menu bar. (I noticed the disappearance of the menu bar from IE years ago but since I avoid it like the plague, it hadn't bothered me as much.)

I've been pricing Office 2003 on eBay and find it's absurdly cheap. Cheap enough I worry about ending up with pirated software. *sigh*

Check Amazon. I found versions of it there when I was trying to make sure I had versions at home to use for potential freelance work. I found versions with Access, which is what I needed, and then purchased an upgrade to Access 2007, so I could have that version on one of my machines if I needed it for a project.

I'm looking at buycheapsoftware.com to see if I can snag an OEM version and looks as if I can. They have it for $129, which is more in line with what I expected to pay.

It won't give me Access, sadly, but I own a copy of Access 2000 and that's good enough for my current purposes. I really wanted to stop this pastiche of programs I have going but I don't see myself paying to keep Office 2007. Maybe I'll change my mind as I get used to it but the difficulty in saving files so that everyone else in the world can read them is quite annoying.

And even better -- I just snagged an upgrade version of Office Professional 2003 via Amazon for $10 more than the OEM version would have been. I have a qualifying 2000 Professional version so I can end my pastiche of programs AND have Access 2003. And now, I'm off to eat beans and rice or pb&j for the next year to make up for spending even more money on my computer self. But it's really nice to join the 21st century in computing.

Oh, I figured out how to make Windows 7 show file extensions twice recently.

In the start menu, type in "show file extensions." A folder options thing should pop up and you can uncheck a box that says "Hide extensions for known file types."

Oh, bless you! The lack of a menu in Windows Explorer left me scratching my head as to how to find the blasted setting. I'll have to remember the trick of using the start menu search. Seems ridiculous to hide darned near everything but I suppose I can adapt. :)

I know. It's taken me a while to get used to it. I had Vista on my desktop before upgrading to Windows 7, and that was similar so that helped a little.