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Modern Comments gone in Microsoft 365 for small business

Anonymous
2025-02-03T18:32:14+00:00

Hi there,

I just switched over to a 365 account owned by the small business I work for. When I switched from my personal account to the business account, I lost the ability to see modern comments in Word. I remember when these first came around, I was annoyed, but now that I've been working with them for years, I'm annoyed to lose them!

I'm working in Word 16.93 for Mac.

From what I can tell, this is something the account's administrator can solve—but, being a small business, that administrator is me, and I have no idea how to solve this problem. Can someone point me in the right direction?

Microsoft 365 and Office | Word | For business | MacOS

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Bob Jones AKA CyberTaz MVP 436K Reputation points
2025-02-03T21:07:55+00:00

You should no longer have to shut down all Connected Experiences in order to disable Copilot. There should be a check box i Word> Preferences - Copilot which you can clear.

However, my understanding is that Copilot doesn't do anything unless the user chooses to employ it. Like virtually all other tools it's simply available. IOW, despite its intrusively promoted appearance it's dormant just like character/paragraph formatting, page numbering, Indexing, etc.

Use Help> Feedback in the menu bar to submit your suggestions/requests/complaints to the Microsoft development group.

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Anonymous
2025-02-03T20:14:50+00:00

Solved. I had "optional connected experiences" turned off in the privacy settings, because Copilot was automatically turned on in my personal account and I work on confidential documents.

The business account doesn't include Copilot, so I can turn those back on I think… however, for anyone from Microsoft out there (I know this isn't you, Bob Jones), we should have more capacity to fine-tune "connected experiences" functionality. We should not have to share our personal or business data with you to use Editor or modern comments!!!

Thanks for your help Bob.

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  1. Bob Jones AKA CyberTaz MVP 436K Reputation points
    2025-02-03T20:04:28+00:00

    I'm not versed in the administration of managed accounts so I'm not sure I can help. I don't believe it should involve admin credentials but that can vary depending on specific license type.

    Please go to Word> About Microsoft Word in the menu bar to confirm the Version Number & type of License for what you currently are using. Include that info in your reply. Also – without disclosing personal info – are you shown as the Belongs to or is something else indicated?

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  2. Anonymous
    2025-02-03T19:37:33+00:00

    First go to Word> Preferences - General to see if there is a check box in the Settings section to Enable modern comments. That box needs to be checked then restart the program.

    There is no such box in my version of MS Word at the moment. I'm thinking this is because I'm on a business Account rather than a personal account.

    See screenshot below.

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  3. Bob Jones AKA CyberTaz MVP 436K Reputation points
    2025-02-03T19:23:29+00:00

    First go to Word> Preferences - General to see if there is a check box in the Settings section to Enable modern comments. That box needs to be checked then restart the program.

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