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I have used microsoft products for a decade now and I am disappointed with it. The new ribbon bar being forced upon us if we select to upgrade to Office 2007 is a bad business decision. I am not saying that it is a bad feature but taking away the ability to access a classic menu is totally unacceptable.
Alot of the complaints on the ribbon bar come from users facing deadlines - who are now faced with a learning curve. The ribbon bar would have gained wider acceptance if MS had added a tab that contained the classic menu.
In short users faced a new ribbon bar but the work deadlines stayed the same. While change may be constant - there is no joy in having to uninstall Office 2007 and re-install Office 2003 to meet a proposal deadline.
The fact that an application was needed where users could execute commands in an Office 2003 menu - and an animation showed you where the equivalent command was in Office 2007 - should have been a major sign that the ribbon bar is not that intuitive.
After working in Office 2007 for more than 6 months on a daily basis - the only relief I found was buyin a AddIn Classic Menu.
The real frustration I have with Windows Vista and Office 2007 is simple:
Cute does not equal productive.
The reason people hate mircosoft is an easy one. They move things around, you can do less with the new version as you could do with the old, and there are way more clicks with a mouse to do basic things.
If Microsoft came out with new products but let us choose and theme we would be more accepting. In Vista you should be able to choose "Classic XP" theme. In Office 2007 you should be able to choose "Office 2003" theme.
If people have to re-learn the OS or their software, they may as well go to a Mac or Open source. OpenOffice looks pretty good to me right now.
Tasks in Office 2007 are taking me 10 time longer with less than perfect results. I hate it!!!!
I went to an Office 2007 seminar and they call these menus improvements. More clicks to do the same thing- is called crap.
There is a great addon called OpenOffice that gets rid of the useless Ribbon bar. You can get back all the usability of the old versions of MS Orifice with hugely improved speed and none of the bugs and security holes - and unlike Orifice it is compatible with all Microsoft file formats.
After using it for half an hour you can also get a huge lump of free disk space by uninstalling Orifice forever !
This is not an advertising message: the ribbon bar was the final nail in the Microsoft coffin that gave me the incentive to look for professionally produced software and my uninstaller has been buzzing ever since. I'm even looking at Macs now !
Here is what I don't understand: I've been using MSWord for over 10 years in my work environment. In that span of time, I have completely customized the toolbar so that I have exactly the buttons I need readily available. I can't even remember the last time I needed to use the File/Edit/View menus to find a command. Don't need to. They're all right there in their button-glory.
Office 2007 has literally crippled me. Please do not tell me how anything is faster or easier to find and navigate.
Before when I wanted to change a font to red, I simply clicked the font color button on my toolbar. One click. Now I get to click the "Home" ribbon thing THEN click the font color button, or I can right-click THEN click the font color button on the pop-up menu. Two clicks either way.
If I then want to add a row to the table I'm in (and where I used to just click my customized 'add row" button), now I have to click the TableTools/Layout tab then click the Insert button. Again, one click vs two. Want to change another font color? Sorry, have to switch back to the Home menu.
That may seem silly to be arguing one click vs two, but we're also arguing one menu vs many. Who wants this anyway? Also, I'm literally doing this hundreds of times per day, doubling the amount of time it takes to do anything. And that's presuming that I can even figure out where Microsoft has moved the buttons to! (Hello? Autotext? Where are you?!?!?)
I cannot believe that this program has been out FIVE YEARS and no one has come up with a workable solution.