Office 365 to Microsoft 365

[cat0w]

This change takes place on April 21st. Office 365 becomes Microsoft 365.

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/explore-microsoft-365-for-home?rtc=1

[fffred]

I just made my third annual payment for subscription to this software. For use on my "then-new" laptop rather than buying the software outright and installing (to my understanding there is no difference in the versions once installed, the "365" is not a web-based version...yuck!).

Have to say that that I am still using Excel 2007 for my daily use (which is heavy). I can't get used to the newer version. Yes, I know that I "should", but as an old dog it's hard to keep learning new ways to fetch the bone...I just want the bone.

[GailL1]

@fffred 

Understand you totally.

Up until last year when an update to Windows 10 happened, I was still using MS WORKS - Word processing, data base and spread sheet -  Then I noticed that I could no longer use the MS Works database portion without an extensive work around.  MS Works hasn't been supported by MS since about 2005 or earlier but it worked for all my needs and I could still use it with other MS processing and reading data.

So then I had to buy and learn Excel (MS Office Suite) for my data base and spread sheet needs - I like it but it is a bit much for my (basic type) needs.  Now I find that instead of just a basic data base or spread sheet file, I make them "flamboyant".:smileylol:

I can still use the MS Works Word Processing - well, until something else changes then I guess I will either adapt or be so old that it doesn't matter anymore.

[fffred]

@GailL1 

I used MS Works and it is good. I got more into the Office components as my employers had these.

Windows 10 still includes trusty Notepad (good for use as a plain text editor) but also has new Wordpad. It provides a lot of word processing features and functions but is simpler to use than Word itself. You might give this a try.

I have wished that Apple still published Claris Works. That had a great database component. Actually, I would love to have the standalone version of that, Filemaker, but it is so far outside my $cope now. I do have the Access database available as part of my Office subscription but can't say that I really like it. 

[fffred]

"Wanting the bone"

Okay, let me describe this a bit more. Having used computers of some sort throughout my university and working career I am accustomed to learning new programs, applications, etc. At times I have relished it.

When personal computers came out I jumped in with enthusiasm. I bought a lot of my own software in order to learn on my own. Also additional programming languages in addition to the fortran I'd used in university. Most of this resulted in improved personal productivity after steep learning curves. 

What I found after some time was that the commercial programs would change over time, every couple years. Sometimes drastically. Sometimes they would be discontinued. Sometimes a favorite program (eg: Autosketch) would no longer work on newer versions of Windows. And often the newer version of said program would seem like a downgrade to me... less flexibility, less transparency, more needless clutter and chaff, etc. It became really disappointing and disillusioning.

Now for the last 20 years of my working career I worked for...a small software company that published software for use by mechanical engineers (as am I). The company is small but the program is used by major petrochemical companies around the world. The program originally ran under DOS but a Windows version was released a year or so after I was hired. The nice thing about the Windows version was that the menus and user operations were consistent with the DOS version. The Windows program was entirely rewritten for the new platform but the user experience was consistent with the old program. Those old dogs who had been using the software for years did not have much of a learning curve at all to the new version. Over the years I was there the software was continuously developed with an incredible amount of power and sophistication built into it. But the user interface was kept pretty much consistent over time, with new features being transparent and mostly self-explanatory, and nothing removed (the few times some useless "feature" was removed we certainly heard about it from the small handful of users who did use those features).

So that last paragraph presented my "bona fides" (or is that "bone fides"?) on the issue of software change for change sake. Our customers at my employer certainly did not want change for no reason, that was inefficient, a waste of their time, they didn't want to have to re-gear from the ground up just to be able to continue doing the work they'd been doing for many years. And that's how I've felt about a number of commercial programs, including Microsoft Office.

Now on the one hand I admire that Office is greatly backwards-compatible. Files I created 25+ years ago are still able to function in Excel, etc. I've always been surprised (astonished) that Excel provides compatibility features for Lotus 1-2-3 and Word provides compatibility features for WordPerfect. But on the other hand I am disappointed that a lot of useful "user interface" features/functions have been dropped, made more complicated, etc. I just want to work on my many spreadsheets (financial and other), not spend so much time learning/relearning how to use my tools. I used to describe it like being a mechanic....the mechanic knows where all their tools are in the toolbox. They would be really perturbed if every month they came in and their tools were entirely reorganized (scattered) and they couldn't find anything...very inefficient...when all you want is the bone, not different ways of fetching.

Younger people might think I'm just another old guy whinging. But I would wager that after going through a few such cycles of their tools being rearranged they will feel the same way.