Looks like Office is in for some major changes. The next version of Office, called Office 2019, is due out the gate in the second half of 2018. The of
[See the full post at: The future of Office: Click-to-Run, on Win10 only]
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There are isolated problems with current patches, but they are well-known and documented on this site. |
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The future of Office: Click-to-Run, on Win10 only
- This topic has 123 replies, 33 voices, and was last updated 5 years, 3 months ago.
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From Windows 10 Client and Windows Server Semi-Annual Channel Lifecycle Policy update (February 1, 2018): “Today, we are clarifying how the Windows 10 Client Semi-Annual Channel and Windows Server Semi-Annual Channel are supported. By listing these Channels as following the Modern Lifecycle Policy, we are able to more accurately reflect how we already service and update Windows 10 and Windows Server Semi-Annual Channels today through twice-a-year feature updates and monthly quality updates.”
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From Lifecycle FAQ—Windows products:
“What happened to the End of Mainstream Support date for Windows 10 listings on the Lifecycle Product Search page?
In the Windows as a Service (WaaS) model, the concept of Mainstream Support does not apply to Semi-Annual Channels as each Semi-Annual Channel will be serviced for a limited time and require moving to the next Semi-Annual Channel to continue to receive security and non-security updates.”
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What an amazing piece of double-talk.
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I too have moved everything over to Google Docs. I’ve been using it for a good 5 years and don’t have any real complaints. Although, when I first started using it I would have to create a spreadsheet in Excel and then upload and convert it to Gsheet. But that only lasted a couple of months. I have Office 2013 too but haven’t used it in a while and will probably skip Office 2019.
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I haven’t really had a need for an office suite since I retired 13 years ago. I bought Office 2007 for my daughter and son-in-law and used it occasionally myself, but it’s now out of support too and effectively dead, and it’s the last MS Office product I will ever use. The last couple of years, my curiosity has led me to try out free, ad-supported versions of Softmaker Office and WPS (formerly Kingsoft Office), as well as the open-sourced LibreOffice. Quite frankly, I found all three more than capable of meeting my limited needs these days and highly (but not perfectly) compatible with MS Office documents people have sent to me, and would recommend any of them to anyone who needs an on-device office suite as opposed to cloud-based solutions. There are undoubtedly other choices out there too, so there is no need for anyone who has a choice to be held hostage to MS Office any more.
‘Office 2019 will be “Office 365-style” click-to-run only, unless you put it on a server. Starting with this new version, you have to rent Office, you can’t buy it.’
I believe one will be able to buy Office 2019. Click-to-Run is an Office deployment technology, not a version of Office.
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From Office 2019 perpetual volume license products available as Click-to-Run (my bolding):
“Q2: Does this mean that Office 2019 will be subscription-based? Will the software get new features?
A2: Office 2019 is a perpetually-licensed product similar to previous major versions. It will receive regular security updates but no new features after its release.
Q3: Will Office 2019 require an Internet connection or a user sign-in for product activation?
A3: Office 2019 uses device-based licenses similar to previous major versions. Users will be able to sign in if they want to. However, they are not required to do this. Key Management Service (KMS) and Multiple Activation Keys (MAK) activation are available to volume license users for offline licensing. No internet connection is required to use the product.“
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Sooooo…Lemme see if I understand this.
If you aren’t hooked into a server with licensing keys, you need to buy an Office 2019 key and log on to activate Office 2019.
Once activated, you don’t have to update Office 2019, but if you want to, the update comes through the Click-to-Run chute, not Windows Update.
Office 2017 had ten years of support (until end of patches). Office 2019 will have seven years.
BUT to keep Office 2019 up to date, you have to stay on the Win10 upgrade treadmill. As soon as your version of Win10 falls off the update list, you won’t be able to patch Office 2019.
This is all in addition to the Office 365 shtick, which is truly a rental.
Did I get that right?
How could they make this more complex?
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Does the Google alternative software require constant online connection to function?
Remember when Google seemed evil by comparison to Microsoft because they wanted to take your information in return for services? My how times have changed.
-Noel
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Short answers:
The Google Apps now run offline, although if you want to sync, you have to log in.
Google is no longer scanning paid accounts for advertising info. As for free accounts, the situation’s murky.
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Google isn’t charging money, but they are charging. Basically, they collect as much of your personal information as possible, then make as much money as they can with that information.
Group "L" (Linux Mint)
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Effective January 14, 2020, ProPlus will no longer be supported on the following versions of Windows. This will ensure that both Office and Windows receive regular, coordinated updates to provide the most secure environment with the latest capabilities.
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Any Windows 10 LTSC release
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Windows Server 2016 and older
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Windows 8.1 and older
What a self-serving hatchet job! Win 8.1 users with several more years left of extended support get abandoned! Gotta upgrade to Win10 if you want ProPlus!
Edit to remove HTML
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I think we’ve been past that point for awhile. We’re just waiting out the decision makers who dictate total compliance. Looking forward to a new standard.
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It would be nice if goverments would start requiring all official electronic documents to use open formats. This would not prohibit proprietary software like Office; I would assume that Office would already be capable of using the various open formats, and if not… well, they’re open, so MS would have no trouble adding them to Office. People could still use Office if they truly think it is worth the cost, the restrictions, and the ribbon… but if they don’t find Office worth the negatives, they would have a real choice.
Using proprietary formats and having the entire worlds of business and goverment held hostage by one corporation is just silly when there are open formats just waiting to be used. If Office is better, let it be chosen on its merits, not because of vendor lock-in. In the short term, all it would take is to change the default save format in Office installations.
If governments led the way, individual corporations may begin to follow suit. If they started using open formats internally, reserving the proprietary formats for interchange with less forward-thinking partners. Eventually, those businesses that share a requirement for open formats internally will learn of each others’ rules, and they will be able to exchange information openly too. Bit by bit, the proprietary silliness would fall by the wayside.
It sounds fanciful and perhaps too good to be true, but it was the same situation we had during the browser wars, when Microsoft was attempting to make their proprietary IE extensions the de facto standard, allowing them to own the web (including IIS and Frontpage) the same way they now own enterprise and government documents. IE had around 95% of the browser market at one point… they came really close to making it happen, but fortunately for us all, they failed. Now all of the browsers in current production are designed for standards compliance, and the idea of making a proprietary browser now seems (justly) absurd.
Dell XPS 13/9310, i5-1135G7/16GB, KDE Neon
XPG Xenia 15, i7-9750H/16GB & GTX1660ti, KDE Neon3 users thanked author for this post.
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Thank you, Ascaris, for pointing out the two-way nature of submittable forms. Downpage here, there is discussion of the required standard for submitting information to the agency that restricts formats.
You point out that where once upon a time you would approach a counter to receive the mandated pre-printed form; now the agency dictates what property you must have in order to receive the form. A burden placed on the citizen in order to pursue a piece of business with their own government.
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Mainstream support = features and security updates
Extended support = security updates only – no new features.
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Amazingly, I’m still using Windows 8.1. It didn’t just crash and burn the day after Mainstream Support ended.
Feature creep will mean that sooner or later those of us on older systems will gradually find ourselves less and less loved, and maybe even just not be able to use a particular program or service we’d really, really like to have.
There will come a day that each of us has to consider what to do “next” w/regard to high tech and computing. It has always been like this. Thankfully, for me that day is not this day, but I make no mistake, decision time will be coming.
-Noel
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Same here with regards to W8.1 and I don’t want anymore useless features that actually create another vector for more incompetent patches, malware, viruses et al.
I kinda like a minimalist OS without crapware, so no W10 is on the cards in it’s present bloated state.
Anyway, what’s to say that advertising won’t creep into Office 2019? Didn’t MS do that with a certain flagship OS..whether we like it or not!
Keeping IT Lean, Clean and Mean!3 users thanked author for this post.
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There will come a day that each of us has to consider what to do “next” w/regard to high tech and computing. It has always been like this. Thankfully, for me that day is not this day, but I make no mistake, decision time will be coming.
If you know that decision time will be coming, you likely also know that it’s not good to wait till the last minute to make that decision.
I’ve moved to Linux Mint as my host system, with Windows 8.1 (and Classic Shell) in a VM. Over the past many months, I’ve been getting better and better with Linux Mint, to the point where I rarely use Windows, pretty much accessing it only to do periodic patching.
So when decision time arrives, I won’t even notice.
Group "L" (Linux Mint)
with Windows 8.1 running in a VM -
I think your description is reminiscent of when this decision was consumer driven. The makers would offer products at market. Shoppers would Ooh and Ahh over the new features. And the majority of purchasers would voluntarily move up, eventually dragging the stragglers along with them.
When the maker forcibly removes the supply, and the freedom of choice, before the market forces show the desire that is what gives us that familiar rebellious feeling. I do recognize the economic sense of the decision. But we all here have filled severs with pages of comments on the reasonable reaction to having choice removed from us.
Steering your customer is good salesmanship. Making your customer feel cheated is bad PR.
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Extended support applies to Windows only – not .NET, Office, etc. All those things are still a go until they reach Extended support on their own or end of support (like Office 2007, 2003, 2000).
MS doesn’t send security-only updates through WU. You will continue to get the Monthly Rollups which contain security and IE updates and fixes until EOL in 2023. They just won’t be adding “improvements” and you will have to pay if you are dum…. er, uninformed enough to call MS Support.
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Mainstream vs. extended support can apply to Office products. Search at Search product lifecycle.
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It was fairly inevitable this was coming. MS tried deception to get users to install Win10 now they’re reduced to coercion. Show what MS thinks about Win10 themselves if they feel the need to use these tactics.
Perhaps they’d have better luck giving end users what they want rather than what MS wants
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I’ve been using LibreOffice for a while now. I only keep Office 2007 installed because I have some old contact information in Outlook and I have a lot of notebooks in OneNote 2007. I’m currently working on moving that stuff out. Once it’s done, MS Office is gone completely. There is just something about the words “Cloud” and “Subscription” that gives me the chills and I don’t want my personal files anywhere near it.
Group "L": Linux Mint dual-booting Windows 10 Pro.
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Ever since Microsoft starting playing games with their Email to when they tried to trick people into the Windows 10 upgrade last summer I have tied to stop using all Microsoft products and used a combination of everyone else. I stopped using Internet Explorer and went to Firefox a long time ago when Woody recommended it. I stopped using Hotmail and went to Gmail at that I started using their DOC for spreadsheets ETC and it works great for my needs.
Maybe if more people starting doing it Microsoft will start doing things their customers want and stop thinking everyone has to bow to their wishes.
Now if I could find a good viable replacement for Skype I would be very happy. If anyone knows of one I would really appreciate hearing about it.
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Perhaps there’s a suitable solution for you in this fairly recent article:
http://www.techradar.com/news/the-best-free-skype-alternatives
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What does it say about the direction of computing / high tech when everyone, at some point, says something like,
“I’ll just keep using the XXXXXXX package I have now, because it does what I need and I have a permanent license”.
We know what it says – it says two things:
1. No one thinks an “as a service” model where you pay as you go is likely to provide as much value as what we got before with the traditional “buy a license and use the software indefinitely” scheme.
2. Even though we all know it’s always been a license to use the software and we don’t own it, no one likes the idea that software will stop working arbitrarily if we miss a payment. We also don’t like having to remain connected online for the software to get permission to work – even though we have no intention of disconnecting.
-Noel
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For most home users SaaS is a waste of money. For almost all, their needs are more than adequately met by LibreOffice, Gimp, or other FOSS applications. Professionals might opt for targeted SaaS; photographers might go for Photoshop, developers might go for JetBrains, etc. SaaS for most users has little benefit and you are getting nicked every month for the privilege. No thanks.
As for Office 2019, since I will not use W10 ever then Office 2019 is dead on arrival for me. I find LibreOffice more than adequate with Calligra (Linux office suite) as a backup works well and both are free.
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I think its patently apparent its a cash grab for the future, yeah I have heard all the arguments of its moving to to the “Cloud,” its better in the “cloud” If your working Offline with no Web access its nigh impossible to retrieve docs, templates etc that you may need. Not everywhere is connected. It used to be on Aircraft you could’nt connect but you can now on most carriers but it cost’s an arm and a leg or is of poor quality as to be virtually useless.
Never used Off365 but what I have seen of it its not up to much.
What about the small user who wants an install “one shot deal” and uses Office about twice a year? your going to pay how much? for something you don’t really use.
You watch it will see the rise of the free Office Suite’s such as Libre Office or people running out of date Office installations, out of support with all the “perils and pitfalls” that entails. In fact thinking ahead when M$ realise’s that the free Office Apps etc are eating in to its territory I can see them trying to make the free Office Docs etc incompatible with whichever incarnation of Office that’ll be around in the next decade.
Well not really impossible to see this coming but a sad day to say the least.4 users thanked author for this post.
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Great points!
I still believe the one large group of Americans* that will be left behind in the change are the same groups currently left behind and ignored, and those groups are those without true high-speed internet. Rural and mountainous areas sometimes do not have access to high-speed networks, or have have alleged “high-speed” internet, but it is often hampered by subpar speeds and frequently crippled by tiny data caps that are actually punative when exceeded.
These are the folks that are disenfranchised by the always connected, cloud-based solutions that work so well in a fiberoptic urban or suburban based ISP world. Cloud storage and bi-annual multi-gig OS ‘upgrades’ are highly problematic. Commercial carriers will not upgrade their services appreciably due to limited revenue to be realized, or they would have by now, if only to allow realistic WiFi speeds to feed smartphones.
I am retired, and we are looking to relocate to a less crowded area, but with our self-imposed requirement for high-speed internet, many of the truely attractive locations begin to have limitations.
* Take a look at international bandwidth, speed, and costs by country, and the US is behind the curve, both in speed and costs.
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The situation you describe exists 40 miles from where I live and for another 200+ miles to the south only pockets of real broadband exist around the larger towns. State grants were announced last week to make further incremental improvements in broadband access but overall it’s still not very good.
Nationwide in the U.S., population, wealth, and power have become more concentrated in urban areas, especially the suburbs. Software that assumes constant, high-speed connection is one more aspect of our lives built on the unthinking assumption that these are the only people whose voices need to be heard.
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To be fair to those urbanites, not all of them qualify for class-envy. There are many individuals in the supporting class that also benefit from location, location, location. Rolling out new infrastructure in a dense population of limited geography is simplified, cheaper, and gives the biggest return on short investment in customer goodwill.
The tragedy is that rural areas, which also includes a few of the VERY wealthy, are ignored for so long that they are two or three levels of innovation behind the curve. It is normal to invest development ‘on the come’ in the cities. Knowing the return will come quickly. But out in the countryside, the recovery cost is demanded upfront, before installation. If you live on a country mile (or twenty) and every landowner agrees to pitch in, great. Otherwise the cost is too steep for most. And the innovation stalls.
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The recent announcements are for Office 2019, and Office 365 ProPlus, neither of which you are probably using. See Office vs Office 365… What’s the Difference?
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Microsoft is free to say goodbye to me if they choose to. They’ve been progressively saying goodbye to me ever since they released Windows 8.0 with its hideous interface.
I guess this is it, then, Microsoft. It was really nice while it lasted.
Soon I will have only an “official” relationship with Microsoft, not a “personal” relationship. What I mean by that is, at the job I will use and support Microsoft products; but at home I will go elsewhere.
It feels really good to come home each day and have Linux Mint on my home computer, with Libre Office and all of the other really great, free software available for Mint. Everything works so well WITHOUT MICROSOFT! And for those rare instances when I need Windows, I have Windows 8.1 installed in a virtual machine — I bring it out of suspended animation when I need it, and I put it back into suspended animation afterward.
Windows is truly the step-child on my home computer. (I love saying that!)
Group "L" (Linux Mint)
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Sorry to disagree, but not everyone is free to abandon Windows or Office, at least just yet: people working for the government and many other, both commercial and not-for profit, organizations are required to use Windows and Office. Case in point: I have to submit some consultant vouchers as Excel documents. Some of the material for my own research is only available in the form of PowerPoint slide presentations.
Ex-Windows user (Win. 98, XP, 7); since mid-2017 using also macOS. Presently on Monterey 12.15 & sometimes running also Linux (Mint).
MacBook Pro circa mid-2015, 15" display, with 16GB 1600 GHz DDR3 RAM, 1 TB SSD, a Haswell architecture Intel CPU with 4 Cores and 8 Threads model i7-4870HQ @ 2.50GHz.
Intel Iris Pro GPU with Built-in Bus, VRAM 1.5 GB, Display 2880 x 1800 Retina, 24-Bit color.
macOS Monterey; browsers: Waterfox "Current", Vivaldi and (now and then) Chrome; security apps. Intego AV1 user thanked author for this post.
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At my job I use Windows 10 and MS Office 2016, but at home I have almost completely moved away from Microsoft. In my post I said “at the job I will use and support Microsoft products; but at home I will go elsewhere.”
As I stated, for those instances where I must have Windows, I have a Windows 8.1 VM installed on my Linux Mint computer.
My wife has Windows 8.1 and Office 2010 on her personal laptop, and I don’t see her moving away from that anytime soon.
But as for me…
Group "L" (Linux Mint)
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At home all the computers have Linux installed (Linux Mint/Arch) with Windows dual booting on a couple of boxes without Internet access allowed for Windows. Windows is used for a couple elderly programs that the wife wants to occasionally use (maybe once or twice a year). MS has basically lost a paying customer because of their stupidity. The wife, who is not that technical, has not had any issues with Linux Mint after a brief learning curve.
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Reply to Anonymous’s February 2, 2018 at 11:51 am post:
You might find what you’re looking for here:
http://www.intelligentediting.com/resources/edit-faster-with-free-macros/
Or if you prefer a YouTube channel:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC6J6ZPMJQ0T5eMIcX3tKh2g
Paul Beverley’s macros seem to be highly thought of by the editors and writers on a couple of mailing lists I subscribe to, though I’ve not used any of them myself yet.
As with anything downloaded from the Internet, I’d be sure to scan any macros using VirusTotal, etc. before using them.
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From Microsoft Office 2019 will only work on Windows 10:
“Microsoft is providing an update on Office 2019 today, revealing that the apps will only run on Windows 10. In a support article for service and support of Windows and Office, Microsoft has revealed you’ll need to upgrade to Windows 10 if you want the latest version of Office without subscribing to the company’s Office 365 service.
It’s a move that’s clearly designed to push businesses that are holding off on Office 365 into subscriptions, as the standalone Office 2019 software will only be supported on Windows 10 and not Windows 7 or Windows 8.1 machines.”
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I have been learning Libre Calc for a while now and have benn movong rapidly up the leaning curve with Ubuntu Linux 16.04 LTS, all running in a VMWare virtual machine. I think most folks who are home users would find the LibreOffice suite of programs more than adequate to meet their needs if they dropped MS Office. I am setting up another virtual machine with Linux Mint to kick the tires. I am not sure if Linux could be the entire answer to replacing Windows/Office at this time but for most folks 80 percent plus of what they are doing they could comfortably complete with Linux. Linux does not have a GUI that is as well-developed as Windows and relies on CLI (Command Line Input) to do perform certain functions. However, it is secure and stable and IMHO updates more reliably than Windows, particularly W10. So a version of Linux could certainly be part of the MS answer in a dual boot configuration. I am sort of in the same place as Noel Carboni, namely I know I will need to make some difficult decisions in the future about MS software and it is time to do the R&D to ensure those decisions are as sound as possible. As an aside, MS is doing what Wall Street analysts think is best, namely become a B2B cloud based enterprise company and withdraw from the consumer market. I think they will find that the margins will be thinner and the return on the more capital intensive operating model more difficult to capture consistently. They will not have the future dominance they enjoyed with Windows and will just be a big cloud competitor among AWS, Google and IBM.
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Windows 10 only? Insert here the sound of countless users of older stable, mature and user-controllable Windows versions going “Meh!” and continuing to happily and productively use Office 2016 (and earlier).
Hanlon's Razor: Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.
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I use Lotus SmartSuite ’97 for my own personal use even though I have Office 10 on my Win 7 machine. SmartSuite ’97 runs great on my old Win XP laptop and I actually love using it since I started out in the early 90’s using Lotus 123 and Amipro at my workplace. They eventually standardized on MS Office and I adapted to it, but I always liked the Lotus products.
I also have Linux Mint which comes with Libre Office that I’m getting used to so I’m ready for whatever nasty surprise MS comes up with next.
Experience is that marvelous thing that enables you recognize a mistake as soon as you make it again.
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There was at least one later addition of SmartSuite that I was aware of, it was the Millenium release (I think that’s what it was called). There may have been newer releases after that but I didn’t keep track of them. SmartSuite ’97 replaced Amipro with Wordpro which like Amipro was very easy to use, and I liked the new version of 123 with the “Smart Icons” which gave you quick access to the things you used frequently.
The people I worked with who used Lotus 123 and Amipro said they loved both and also loved Lotus SmartSuite ’97. We were forced to get good at MS Office even though we were much faster with Lotus. Many more colors, beautiful woodgrain, and easy to use. SmartSuite ’97 had it all before MS Word, Excel, and Office came into widespread use.
Experience is that marvelous thing that enables you recognize a mistake as soon as you make it again.
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It was the Millenium edition I was remembering. I used them all from late 1992 onward, and it was the best. Thanks for reminding me that they changed over to WordPro late in the game.
One little example of something Excel didn’t do: Lotus allowed you to insert a semicolon at the end of the formula and add a comment. I had notes to myself buried all over my spreadsheets. That ended with the conversion to Excel.
IMO, Lotus 1-2-3 was classic innovation. Excel? More a case of imitation and clever marketing strategy, as in targeting big companies to buy in bulk so their customers and suppliers would have to come along. I wouldn’t deny that it took a lot of smart people to duplicate (reverse engineer?) what Lotus, for the most part, already had.
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Bottom line, other than enterprises, I cannot imagine why anyone would RENT Office from Microsoft. The vast majority already own older versions dating back to 2000 and have no reason whatever to think they need different software.
So, this is the end of Microsoft Office in the consumer marketplace.
CT
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I think that is the direction many saw things going quite awhile ago, including you CT. What started with a tease, a suggestion, a nudge, push, shove, knife in the back threat; well, yourself and many have described the progress more specifically than this brief comment.
I feel that bullying only works so long as the weakling cannot see an option. I hope there are fewer weaklings today. There certainly are more options.
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No real surprises here.
Win7 will have slightly more than 1 year of extended support left when O2K19 drops, so why develop it for that platform?
I’ve seen rumors and ideas that either O2K19 will be built using .DLL’s and such that are only in Win10, and I’ve also seen mention that at one point or another it was rumored that O2K19 would be (or have) UWP apps, which would also tie into the Win10 exclusivity.People have plenty of options nowadays for word processor/spreadsheet/presentation applications. I think this is a dumb move, but that’s basically par for the course with MS over the last 2 years. Besides, they haven’t really done any worthwhile improvements or additions to Office in over 10 years, which is why most people either continue using their old versions.
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Slight correction to my previous post– 8.1’s mainstream support ended last month.
Dell XPS 13/9310, i5-1135G7/16GB, KDE Neon
XPG Xenia 15, i7-9750H/16GB & GTX1660ti, KDE Neon1 user thanked author for this post.
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As long as the government & corporate sectors keep using MS Office, it is difficult for those who work in or with these sectors to switch away from MS Office.
Compatibility is a big issue, & conversion by non-MS Office suites can be a hit & miss. You want to be sure that the documents that you send to your boss or clients look exactly as you intended — instead of looking like something that was done by someone with terrible formatting skills &/or a terrible sense of aesthetics.
As for cloud-based office suites or other cloud applications. below are some limitations:-
1) Besides the issue of individuals lacking 24/7 high-speed internet (I’m on ADSL connection with a top speed of just 100 kilobytes/sec on a good day), government agencies at some places are cutting off or have already cut off the internet for almost all staff due to fears of attacks via the internet.
So let’s say you wish to share an AskWoody post or a ComputerWorld article with someone working in the government — you can’t simply send a hyperlink. Instead, you need to convert the webpage to PDF & send that as an email attachment. Yet their preferred (& only) option of PDF viewer is typically the ultra-bloated Adobe Reader, which seems to require endless patching.
And there was a real-life case of how the police department requested a member of the public making a report to burn the evidence video on a CD, & bring or courier it to the police station. This is because the cops’ office PCs are cut off from the internet, so it is not possible to either view uploaded videos or download them from a file storage site like Google Drive.
In addition, cloud-based anything is out of the question, when one needs to book usage time on 1 of the 3 internet-facing PCs made available for every government department (each with at least 30 staff) just to carry out some web research.
2) If your document contains sensitive info, you probably don’t want to upload it to the cloud, even if you were to set yourself as the only user with access permissions. The so-called cloud is simply someone else’s computer servers — be it Microsoft, Google, Amazon, or Facebook.
That being said, if Microsoft were to push the entire Office suite to the cloud, this might be the impetus for large (but no-internet-allowed) government clients to finally start looking for non-cloud alternatives, instead of handing the monopoly to Microsoft year after year.
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You raise a good point about the real world in which all this takes place.
This initiative will collide head-on with the accounting and other rules that require companies and other institutions to ensure and warrant under penalty of law that their systems are secure; with HIPAA; and with who knows what other such regulations.
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To add to your point about self-imposed isolation for government offices; in my experience county level is the most abusive here, that may be a false read based on how much government service is borne at that level. Part of me suspects powers that be desire to stay more than one arm’s length from their constituents.
The burn a disc approach was at least a creative work around, but I haven’t performed that operation in, gosh years I guess. And I agree privacy/security demands physical transfer and a written receipt. But in my trusted group that would be a clean thumbdrive or equivalent. Can you imagine that level of breach, if John Doe were permitted to submit a thumbdrive to an office housing equipment that is likely out of date and past support?
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Nobody here likes to be a party-pooper. But, in the middle of this heartfelt celebration of ditching Windows and Office, a sentiment I can completely sympathize with, I find it necessary to interject a reminder that the world is larger, more complicated than we can ever know, as are its problems.
Large organizations, both government and non, have made correspondingly large investments of time, effort and money in installing, maintaining and operating the Windows OS and, along with that, Office. They have trained their own personal in the use of both. They are not going to gladly ditch all that investment in a hurry. Particularly when the necessary resources are in short supply (often chronically so in the case of government) and everybody there is always in a hurry to get things done and need to keep doing what they are doing without interruptions for unrelated issues. I know, because I am a consultant working with government research organizations. My monthly expense and labor vouchers have to be submitted, in one case, as Excel spreadsheets. And, as I do research as part of my paid work, I need to get information on the work done by others that, oftentimes, is distributed in the form of PowerPoint slides. Sometimes I collaborate online with people that like Word and keep sending their documents in that form. As a result, I need to have Windows, Office and some other MS products, like it or not, installed in my computers. I even have Office installed in the Mac.
There is Office-compatible software, such as LibreOffice, that might be an alternative to Office for some. But as PKCano has pointed out, the way things have been going, and seem set to continue going that way, it would not be a big surprise if MS were to put software blocks that make Office documents accessible for reading and writing only from Office.
From that perspective, things do not look too solid now, and less and less so the further one tries to imagine, without being too paranoid, what is to come.
Ex-Windows user (Win. 98, XP, 7); since mid-2017 using also macOS. Presently on Monterey 12.15 & sometimes running also Linux (Mint).
MacBook Pro circa mid-2015, 15" display, with 16GB 1600 GHz DDR3 RAM, 1 TB SSD, a Haswell architecture Intel CPU with 4 Cores and 8 Threads model i7-4870HQ @ 2.50GHz.
Intel Iris Pro GPU with Built-in Bus, VRAM 1.5 GB, Display 2880 x 1800 Retina, 24-Bit color.
macOS Monterey; browsers: Waterfox "Current", Vivaldi and (now and then) Chrome; security apps. Intego AV3 users thanked author for this post.
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This is why in my more speculative comments I try to remember to acknowledge that Microsoft remains the de facto standard of compliance. But I continue to see that as a bad thing.
Part of me quietly cheers Microsoft making poor decisions. Hear me out. It causes pain, yes. But if it causes sufficient disruption, then we will pass a turning point where Microsoft will cease to be that de facto standard. Remember that feeling in the mid1980’s when you knew you made the right choice with your VHS recorder? Maybe you had the better quality Betamax and lost out. I’m hoping LibreOffice wins this round. But since it is available free in both currency and liberty, at least it will not be painful if I’m wrong.
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I hope so. But organizations, large ones in particular, sometimes act on their own strange logic, or one that may seem strange when looking in from the outside.
That logic might reflect a fact unknown to outsiders, such as a lack of means to implement the needed changes in a timely fashion. Another such reason could be that the bosses don’t want to acknowledge that they have made a bad mistake, and those further down the food chain are not too eager to confront them with those mistakes. Then, at long last, an acceptance of the necessary changes may arrive, kicking and screaming and dragged in by the hair. Or such acceptance may not arrive, and every one in there just has to muddle through, somehow, or look for a job elsewhere.
Things one may learn after some years of observing, and dealing with, large organizations.
Ex-Windows user (Win. 98, XP, 7); since mid-2017 using also macOS. Presently on Monterey 12.15 & sometimes running also Linux (Mint).
MacBook Pro circa mid-2015, 15" display, with 16GB 1600 GHz DDR3 RAM, 1 TB SSD, a Haswell architecture Intel CPU with 4 Cores and 8 Threads model i7-4870HQ @ 2.50GHz.
Intel Iris Pro GPU with Built-in Bus, VRAM 1.5 GB, Display 2880 x 1800 Retina, 24-Bit color.
macOS Monterey; browsers: Waterfox "Current", Vivaldi and (now and then) Chrome; security apps. Intego AV3 users thanked author for this post.
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Older versions of Office used binary file formats that were not publicly specified and had to be reversed engineered (which was done). The current formats are actually containers for xml documents but have weird formatting information. Also, later versions of Word does not always correctly render older templates and documents even today. I have to save files made from one template in the older binary format so they look reasonable at work.
MS has periodically obsoleted prior Office formats and in some cases does not provide a way to open those formats.
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OscarCP said:
Particularly when the necessary resources are in short supply (often chronically so in the case of government) and everybody there is always in a hurry to get things done. […] I need to get information on the work done by others that, oftentimes, is distributed in the form of PowerPoint slides.Incidentally, in the government where the internet is blocked on all staff’s work machines, external parties who need to share large files with government staff have since resorted to desperate measures as follows.
- PREVIOUSLY: Upload large file to file-sharing or cloud-hosting site, & email relevant hyperlink to government staff.
- NOW: Break large file (eg. PowerPoint slides) into 20 or more smaller PowerPoint files. Due to attachment size limitations per email, send these one by one via email.
If you are the sender in this situation & have a car, as well as some time to spare, it is probably much less frustrating for you to burn the file in its entirety to a CD, & take it to the public service counter for despatch to the recipient.
On the other hand, your recipient may not even experience even 5% of your frustration. From what I observe, the 9-to-5 staff in this government are generally not in a hurry to do anything, so opening 20+ PowerPoint email attachments is no big deal.
The phenomenon is due to natural selection. Those who are driven to get things done quickly & efficiently are the ones who tend to exit public service due to sheer frustration wth the red tape & prevalent ambience of indolence.
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Anonymous (#16478) wrote:
“From what I observe, the 9-to-5 staff in this government are generally not in a hurry to do anything, so opening 20+ PowerPoint email attachments is no big deal. The phenomenon is due to natural selection. Those who are driven to get things done quickly & efficiently are the ones who tend to exit public service due to sheer frustration wth the red tape & prevalent ambience of indolence.”
True of some government organizations, not of all, or at least not of all in their entirety. On the one hand, for example, certain large cities, that shall remain nameless, have governments riddled with patronage and corruption, and things creep at a glacial pace rather than fly, because the few, the brave, who dare do real work to serve the public are constantly frustrated by the incompetent and, or self-serving, self-seeking time-wasters.
But, I am happy to add, there are exceptions I have been lucky enough to encounter in the course of my career, at least within certain dependencies of the Federal government. Such as some very active and internationally recognized science and engineering groups in NOAA, NASA as well as military research laboratories, for example NRL. And people I know, that work in those groups (and often do so late into the evening, when the 9 to 5 crowd is long gone, because they want to get things done, and done in time), have shown no signs of interest in being somewhere else. At least until recently. But now we are living in such interesting times, full of changes, so, who knows?
Ex-Windows user (Win. 98, XP, 7); since mid-2017 using also macOS. Presently on Monterey 12.15 & sometimes running also Linux (Mint).
MacBook Pro circa mid-2015, 15" display, with 16GB 1600 GHz DDR3 RAM, 1 TB SSD, a Haswell architecture Intel CPU with 4 Cores and 8 Threads model i7-4870HQ @ 2.50GHz.
Intel Iris Pro GPU with Built-in Bus, VRAM 1.5 GB, Display 2880 x 1800 Retina, 24-Bit color.
macOS Monterey; browsers: Waterfox "Current", Vivaldi and (now and then) Chrome; security apps. Intego AV2 users thanked author for this post.
Bit of a story, but it will link to the topic…
There was the day that I received my first personal computer… a desktop, with XP Home on it… as a gift. It was delivered to my door… and I was a little intimidated… but was relieved to find all the connections were color coded… green to green, red to red, yellow to yellow… and there were fairly specific instructions included. I started it up… and it mostly worked for me, right off… and it was beautiful! I didn’t have internet, and wouldn’t have it for a while. I bought a copy of Windows XP for Dummies… and was set free to explore the world of computing. That desktop eventually had an internet connection, and then a larger hard drive, an external hard drive to back up to, and the power supply went out and was replaced… but it went on and on and on, for well over 10 years. It was retired back to non-internet access when XP went out of support… and hasn’t given up the ghost, yet.
That is my story of how I got hooked into using non-free software. I didn’t know anything about hardware or software, or any of the issues that came with them. I’d been around engineers that used computers at work and at home (they were early adopters), and I had long ago decided that they didn’t do a lot I was interested in. My computer was different… it did things I was interested in doing, writing, photo editing, finances … and much of the most interesting things were what the non-free software was doing… and it came with the computer, or I purchased it on a disk… and I didn’t even have a clue that there existed a difference, that there might be an issue.I didn’t find out about the difference between free and non-free software until recently. I would have thought that an OS would be free… that I would be able to use my computer the way I want. I’ve been very frustrated by Microsoft trying to hijack my beloved computer with the GWX campaign… but Woody and the MPVs here kept me on track… and my laptop is tweaked as well as this non-techy can… but I didn’t understand Microsoft’s bad behavior. My feeling, despite all those EULA’s, was that I bought the hardware, and I bought the software… and it was all mine! Funny thing… Microsoft, and the developers and sellers of non-free hardware and software don’t agree… and it is clearly apparent that how they want me to use my computer is different than how I want to use it. That led me to experiment with Linux (slowly and tentatively, but seeing I will need some proficiency when Win 7 reaches end of life). I wouldn’t have looked in that direction, if Microsoft had been behaving better. Thank you, Microsoft!
I found that others have been down this path, before me…
The Free Software Foundation defines free software this way:
“Free software” means software that respects users’ freedom and community. Roughly, it means that the users have the freedom to run, copy, distribute, study, change and improve the software. Thus, “free software” is a matter of liberty, not price.
Microsoft is demonstrating the failings of non-free, proprietary software on an almost daily basis… to the point that the freedom to run software that isn’t approved by them will be removed from Windows 10, through Windows Defender. Thus, W10 was marketed as new, better, improved… and more secure…
But… Microsoft products do not respect basic user freedoms… and it wasn’t built to respect them. It has a wide user base that developed because users loved what they could do with it. It felt free, as we were doing all sorts of things that we couldn’t do before. That felt wonderful, and accounts for its popularity. But I have only assumed a freedom that isn’t actually there. Microsoft could sell and profit from free (as in free speech) software. Anyone can. But, they don’t respect the freedom of their user base. They don’t respect me. It probably started as their concern that they were spending all this time and money to develop a product, and they needed to protect their investment. So… their software is proprietary and non-free. Most of us who used their products were completely ignorant that the choice had already been made for us… or that there are choices.
There are free alternatives. Most people (I did) thought of them as free because you didn’t pay to use them, but that isn’t it at all. They support freedom… my freedom. There are people who have invested a lot of time and energy into developing them. They may not have the gloss of proprietary products. They certainly don’t have the advertising budget. It isn’t just turning to a Linux distro and having choices, though. There is freedom of our phones, Iot devices… and cars. Freedom. This, also, isn’t just an issue of Microsoft products, Intel processors, or Apple’s closed garden. I have found that I need to assess and choose products, in all their variety, based on whether they are supporting freedom of the user.
I have to thank Microsoft for that. If they hadn’t made it so difficult for myself, friends and family to just go on using their operating system obliviously, I wouldn’t have identified this need, and continued to invest my hard earned money into products that do not support my basic, essential, freedom.Microsoft doesn’t just limit the freedom of the user, they are going all out on disrespecting their customers, dumbing down products, limiting access to products (small business and home users don’t have the option of using Enterprise or Education features), and changing the use of already purchased products to include telemetry and other unwanted features. They could provide products that respect user freedom. They clearly don’t… It is one of the problems of power and control… the temptation is too great to make others do it your way, the way that is most profitable for you, no matter how anyone feels about it.
I won’t be buying products from Microsoft again. That includes Office 2019, even if it can be run without internet access… or subscription. I will be assessing alternatives based on the principal of user freedom… my freedom. Freedom is more important than an operating system, or program. It is essential to me, like the air I breathe… invisible, but always there. It must be exercised to grow strong.
So… in the future, I will choose LibreOffice over Microsoft Office, in any form. There aren’t always equivalent products to the proprietary ones… but people are devoting time and resources to develop them.
I’m including this link to Why Free Software is Even More Important:
https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-software-even-more-important.htmlI respect the work of Woody and the MPVs here. They try to give me more information, more choice, more control, more freedom… but I wish that there would be more information about the freedom (or lack of it) for a user when there is knowledgeable evaluation of an operating system, or a particular program, or tool. There are times I want a life jacket, to fit securely, be difficult to remove, and keep my head above water… but I don’t want to wear that when I go out dancing… (well, when I used to dance )…
Write that Microsoft Office!
Oh… it did (this being composed on Microsoft Word 10)… I’ve got a ways to go, and am not wanting to give up what I’ve used comfortably for years… but it looks like the next time I buy a computer, or an OS, or a program, I’ll have a fairly easy way of evaluating whether to choose it… does it allow the user to be free?
Future Microsoft Office, in any form, doesn’t meet the freedom criteria.
Non-techy Win 10 Pro and Linux Mint experimenter
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Outstanding post. Thanks for sharing that!
Dell XPS 13/9310, i5-1135G7/16GB, KDE Neon
XPG Xenia 15, i7-9750H/16GB & GTX1660ti, KDE Neon1 user thanked author for this post.
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Elly said:
I won’t be buying products from Microsoft again. That includes Office 2019, even if it can be run without internet access… or subscription. I will be assessing alternatives based on the principal of user freedom… my freedom.Thanks for sharing your experience & thoughts. Your empowering words are an inspiration.
Perhaps the software ecosystem got so toxic & disrespectful, because it is so overwhelmingly monopolized by a few powerful players, whose sheer dominance effectively intimidates end-users into thinking that there might be no better alternatives other than the status quo.
But “the world is surely wide enough to walk without fear”.
#TimesUp Microsoft
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Been a while between drinks here, so firstly Hello all…
Interesting… things with M$ more or less still seem on very similar course.
This may or not be welcome (hope it is, sorry if it isn’t) but noticing @MrJimPhelps & @LurksAbout mentioning Linux… I’ve been playing around Pop!_OS 17.10 & thought you might have some fun yourselves.
See: https://system76.com/popLikely you already know of System76, they now have their own re-spin on Ubuntu 17.10.
It’s based on gnome, but xorg (not wayland) & a few other pluses, guessing you’ll either love it or hate it. For those that love it… look out for the LTS arriving later this year.
Get used to using the Windows (Start) key on your keyboard, it’s your go-to for everything, opening/switching applications, workspaces, files, folders, software, searches… literally everything!
greynadEDIT html to txt (only simple bbcodes used here, but this could be a copy>paste issue?)
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It’s based on gnome, but xorg (not wayland)
Ubuntu is going back to Xorg too in the next release (18.04, LTS). Mint, my preferred distro, being based on only the LTS releases of Ubuntu, has always used Xorg.
Get used to using the Windows (Start) key on your keyboard,
Super key. It’s only a Windows key when you’re in Windows. Consider the logo silkscreened on it to be put there ironically! <grin>
Dell XPS 13/9310, i5-1135G7/16GB, KDE Neon
XPG Xenia 15, i7-9750H/16GB & GTX1660ti, KDE Neon -
Linux Mint is most often mentioned as it is probably the best general purpose distro for the typical user. It has all the necessary features users will need and is easy to use. The Cinnamon desktop is very similar to Windows in look and feel. PopOS is intended for more tech savvy users inline with the typical System76 customer. But being based on Ubuntu I suspect (never used PopOS) it probably has some added features not found in either Ubuntu or Mint that developers, etc. want in addition to the base Ubuntu. This highlights one the great advantages and disadvantages (it’s both simultaneously) of Linux; distros can target different users’ needs and skills more specifically. But this means there are plethora of excellent distros available which can be confusing to someone trying figure out which one to use.
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My reading of the tea leaves is MS is trying to convert all users of Office to a subscription based license or preferably (for them) to Office 365 over time. The problem I see with this is monthly subscriptions add up even the individual amounts are relatively small. I try to limit my subscriptions to a minimum and they professional only and for Office is not a professional necessity.
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As evil as Google may seem, at least they aren’t charging for my inconvenience. Microsoft, on the other hand…
True, but as Treebeard said in Lord of the Rings, “Wizards should know better.”
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Woody has altered the initial post to strike out this text: Starting with this new version, you have to rent Office, you can’t buy it.
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Bravo! Author, author!
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