FrankDzedzy.com

I have been using the Office 2007 Beta for the past few weeks, and I have a few problems with it. My biggest problem is with the new interface. While I think the new interface looks slick, my problem with it is that it is new. Word, Excel, Powerpoint, and Publisher, have all had virtually the same interface since they first came to Windows in 1992:

The image on top is Word 2.0, in the middle is Word 2003, and on the bottom is the latest Word 2007. It’s easy to see that the Word interface changed very little between 1992 and 2003. But starting in 2007, the interface changes dramatically. The biggest difference is that Office 2007 got rid of the ubiquitous drop down menus. No more File, Tools, View, Edit, etc. Instead there is a tabbed interface with all the buttons on it. This is very confusing, and I think it is hard to get used to. It means that things aren’t were I expect them to be. I have to search through an array of tabs and icons to find what I want. While I am willing to learn the new interface, I don’t really want to spend (waste) the time necessary learn how to do what I want(and already know how to do with the old version).

Working in IT support, I know that when users start getting computers with this new version of Office they are going to panic because they don’t know what they are doing. I am especially thinking of older, less tech savy users who are used to what they are doing and don’t want to change. The same is true for the new Windows Vista. It is going to throw off a lot of people from what they are used to. However, I remember the many small changes to the interface that I have gotten used to since I started working with Windows 95. Going back to a Windows 95 computer now, I flounder around looking for what I want. However, the struggle of aclimating new users to the next Office is still at least a year away. And I have the beta for that year to learn it so I can teach others. Overall I think that Microsoft has changed the interface so much that it is going to cause many headaches for many people in 2007. Send me tylenol for Christmas!

Another problem I have with the new Office Beta is related to Outlook. For one it keeps the old Office interface which is suprising. But my biggest problem with it is that it is horrendously slow. It is slow switching between folders and emails, especially emails with html. Regular text emails are pretty quick to come up, but html heavy emails take forever to display in the preview pane. After using it for a week, I am really getting sick of it. Also the new microsoft search beta thing that I installed to enable the searching in Outlook is a major resource hog. That and outlook combined can really chew up a lot of ram. And my hard drive always cranks up when ever I am using Outlook. I have Outlook connected to my Exchange server, so I am guessing that since it is beta there is some kind of incompatability. But I am ready to put Outlook 2003 back on, and get rid of the Microsoft search.

Overall I think Microsoft is doing good with office. It is still beta as evidenced by my problems with Outlook. I do think it is getting more and more bloated. And the interface was fine in for 16 years, so why change it now. But I am sure 50 years from now it will be completely different, so I will just get used to it.