Risk of old Office versions

TheVisitor · Monday at 7:46 PM

antspants said:
Maybe, I am yet to see it. But like others have mentioned, I have also removed OneDrive

That would be why your not seeing it. After I removed OneDrive no more nag strip. Thanks everyone.

Edwin · Monday at 8:57 PM

Some things about the new Office design, presumably the FluentSVRefresh UI, annoy the heck out of me!
For instance...
When collapsing an Office window, collapsing menus take on a scroll bar, but, as soon as you interact with the UI, the hidden items become a More... button!!!

Drives me nuts! Why not just keep the scroll bar going!?!?!?

Kees · Tuesday at 5:38 AM

antspants said:
I understand it’s a personal choice but you can buy Office Pro 2021 so cheap why would you take a risk? I seriously don’t get why people mess around with versions as old as 2000/2010

I did use Office 2003 for a very long time because of just one reason:
I hate the ribbon UI of any version of MS Office later than that one.
In 2008, I bought the 'Home and Student' version of MS Office 2007.
And then discovered that the menu structure was replaced by the ribbon structure.

But I said to myself: You should use it, certainly must get used to it.
At that time I did a lot of (private) work with Word and Excel, so the opportunity to get used to it was there.
But I failed. After about a year, struggling every time to find the functions in those silly organized 'menus', I decided to return to Office 2003 and that has stayed so until last year, when I found the Softmaker Office 2021 package, with which I could choose between Menu / Ribbon structured UI.

So I still use the menu structure of Office 2003, but in a more modern app. And I'll stay doing that until the end of my life!

antspants · Tuesday at 6:10 AM

Kees said:
I did use Office 2003 for a very long time because of just one reason:
I hate the ribbon UI of any version of MS Office later than that one.
In 2008, I bought the 'Home and Student' version of MS Office 2007.
And then discovered that the menu structure was replaced by the ribbon structure.

But I said to myself: You should use it, certainly must get used to it.
At that time I did a lot of (private) work with Word and Excel, so the opportunity to get used to it was there.
But I failed. After about a year, struggling every time to find the functions in those silly organized 'menus', I decided to return to Office 2003 and that has stayed so until last year, when I found the Softmaker Office 2021 package, with which I could choose between Menu / Ribbon structured UI.

So I still use the menu structure of Office 2003, but in a more modern app. And I'll stay doing that until the end of my life!

The Office Ribbon is actually extensively customisable. You can actually pretty much remove everything you don’t ever use and replace it with functions that you do.

I got 3/4 through creating a detailed tutorial last year and either got too busy or lost interest, can’t remember which.

Kees · Wednesday at 3:38 PM

antspants said:
The Office Ribbon is actually extensively customisable. You can actually pretty much remove everything you don’t ever use and replace it with functions that you do.

Maybe it can, but it still stays a ribbon, which I don't like at all, being very much accustomed to the menu structure.
I have been using that menu structure since the first version of Windows (and Macintosh).
So no thanks, I am a happy user of Softmaker Office now.

gunrunnerjohn · Wednesday at 4:03 PM

In the past I was using OpenOffice, it worked just fine. However, when I was a Microsoft MVP, I get Microsoft office, so I started using that, and I've never switched again. There are tons of other very good Office suites available, many of them totally free.

Hornblower409 · Wednesday at 4:06 PM

Kees said:
Maybe it can, but it still stays a ribbon, which I don't like at all, being very much accustomed to the menu structure.

I bought Classic Menu for Office and used it for years until I finally got used to navigating the ribbon.

Show Classic Menus and Toolbars in Office 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019 and 365

jimbo45 · 2025-04-24T08:10:50-0400

Office LTSC 2021 seems about the best bet these days -- really cheap versions available and it still supports Publisher not in later versions of Office or in Office/365 - many still use that.

Note also if you use things like MsQuery to retrieve data from MariaDB / MySQL type DB's into EXCEL which need an ODBC driver then in EXCEL in options check in DATA --> enable legacy data sources and choose the relevant one. Also latest ODBC driver for windows can be downloaded from the MySql (oracle) community site -- ver 9.3.x

Note though EOL will be in around 18 months for Office 2021 LTSC so grab any updates / languages etc for it before it's retired.

(EOL : Oct 2026 - not sure of specific date).

Cheers
jimbo

pseymour · 2025-04-24T08:14:22-0400

@jimbo45 Oct 13, 2026

Office LTSC 2021 - Microsoft Lifecycle

Office LTSC 2021 follows the Fixed Lifecycle Policy.

learn.microsoft.com

jimbo45 · 2025-04-24T08:15:35-0400

pseymour said:
@jimbo45 Oct 13, 2026

Office LTSC 2021 - Microsoft Lifecycle

Office LTSC 2021 follows the Fixed Lifecycle Policy.

learn.microsoft.com

Cheers
jimbo

Risk of old Office versions

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