PROBLEMS WITH MICROSOFT OFFICE 2016

Question

11/18/15

I had the old 2003 version of office as I did not like the new ribbon format of office but because of the pulled support, I noticed that some features no longer worked (in 2003 Excel) and I decided to upgrade to the new office.  I got the free trial for the 2016 Office and I had a lot of problems but I was told by support that all the problems were due to the fact that it was not a full version and was only a trial.  (Why give a glitchly trial? Disappointment #1)  But because I was assured that I had a 30 day money back guaranty, I went ahead and purchased the 2016 Home & Student Office product.  

Today, I spent 5 hours working on an Excel document.  I am an experienced excel user and I know to save often when working.  I had three separate workbooks opened when suddenly, the main document I was working on disappeared.  When I tried to re-open the file, the title no longer appeared, the document was blank, and all of the controls were dimmed (meaning you can't use them).  I tried a google search and could not find a fix, I tried to see if I could restore a previous version (as I was saving the whole time) but nothing was available, I went to Microsoft Office under programs and did BOTH the quick fix and the online fix but to no avail.  All my work was just GONE.  (Disappointment #2)

So I decided to try again.  I made a new document.  Saved it.  Put a little information and tested the save.  Yep, everything was working.  So I started to re-create the document, saving and testing the save as I went.  Lo and behold, the same thing happened. (Disappointment #3)  So I immediately contacted support this time.  After over an hour of watching the support person (who had remoted into my computer) do the same things over and over again, it was apparent that support did NOT know how to fix the problem!  (Disappointment #4!!!)  And so, I have to wonder, was the free trial glitzy or a true representation of this faulty product?! (Disappointment #5)   

Bottom line, I am extremely frustrated and disappointed with both the product and the service.  Microsoft, my question is:  do you have someone who can resolve my problem?

Answer 1

Thx Tom, good advice.

Answer 2

Office 2013 and 2016, or any 365 versions run without any issues on win7

Answer 3

I have been using Office 2016 since its "pre-release" and have had no problems except when running it on my older Windows 7 machine, which also had Office 2010 and Office 365. When I upgraded to Windows 10 and got rid of the older versions of Office, my problems seemed to vanish.

I do know that if you are running older versions of some old Office modules, it will interfere with Office 2016. It is a little scary to do so, but if you remove all the old Office modules so that you are only running 2016, you should see things straighten out. If you have not upgraded to Windows 10, I would highly recommend that you do this before you go to Office 2016.

Hope this helps; Mike

Answer 4

When you save your document, do a save as and give it a new name

Testdoc_v(1).xlsx

Testdoc_v(2).xlsx

Testdoc_v(3).xlsx

and so forth.  At least you should not lose the older versions as there would be no relationship to them and document you are currently working on.

This, of course, is just a defensive measure; not a solution.

--

Regards,

Tom Ogilvy

Answer 5

Any trial is a full version, and exactly the same as any purchased version - so whatever support you spoke to gave b***s

Are you saving to the local PC or OneDrive?