Another example of M$ software getting worse with time.
I feel the same about the Windows 10 taskbar as well. I use Open Shell to change it to the older taskbar.
The more I think about it, the more I’m tempted to ditch MS365 actually, which I hadn’t anticipated when I started this thread. I dislike AI, and Copilot in particular. The MS apps I use have become unwieldy (principally Word and Excel).
I like OneNote, but there will be alternatives (I switched to OneNote when Evernote hiked their prices).
I have 2To of storage with Apple which is shared with Madame, so a justifiable expense. And I have the Apple apps, because the main computer is a Mac.
Hmm.
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Never felt the desire to get into Windows shell customisations - they make it difficult to help others for a starter, and have to be maintained, updated, moved from machine to machine so tend to become a bit of a pain over time.
Plus the fact that my day to day desktop is Linux Mate 
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It’s been a while, but I think that I’ve once done 7, 8, 10 on the same hardware. I’ve certainly done 8 early (i.e. 7 with the tablet interface) to 8.1 to 10 on the same machine. Also done 10 to 11 on several machines. It might be the fresh install, but in each case the computer has seemed more responsive.
Give them a try - cost to you is zero since they come free with all Macs!
I use Keynote exclusively in place of PPT for presentations; it’s way less cluttered. I do my invoices in Pages; the only thing I use Word for is client contracts and that’s only because I have a template set up, I could probably convert it quite easily.
I do use Excel for my accounts but again it’s only inertia stopping me doing those in Numbers.
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Check compatibility when moving information across. You may be fine, but when I was researching macs a long time back, excel had minimal compatibility, and things like graphs simply didn’t transfer between. I ran office on my Mac because it was the only way I could work with others and be sure documents appeared correctly.
My accounts spreadsheets are super basic - just columns of figures with totals at the bottom! 
So I really ought to grasp the nettle and give Numbers a try.
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Should be ok then. When I tried a real data comparison, libre office was much better at managing office documents than the Apple versions, but unfortunately they didn’t always translate well going the other way.
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Well, it’s just my machine and I’ve used it on three different ones and you just need to install it and select a single option. Not difficult at all.
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Libreoffice is available for the Mac, it’s very good, free, and compatible with the MS products.
You might not believe how many computers I have…
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I can guess. I only have five. That does include two Raspberry Pis though
Lemme see, just desktop machines in the house at the moment - 4 (1 Linux, 2 Windows, 1 dual boot)
Plus 2 laptops, personal and work
Plus one tablet (which, despite having more M$ stuff than my phone has escaped infection with copilot - for now)
Plus 4 Virtual machines - including mail server, web server, media server and cloud server.
Plus my son’s laptop and desktop but those are at his place now he’s at Uni.
Then PC in France, Laptop in France and media server in France
Then four wireless APs (one in France three in the UK) running OpenWRT
Then the Frankenbox for France
Two single board machines running Fedora that I use as firewalls
Multiple motherboards which I keep in case something needs replacing in a hurry
I’ve probably forgotten something
Arguably it is slight overkill to support three users 
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And they say global warming isn’t real …
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I still use Office 2003 and I far prefer it to all the newer versions. I find opening files, inserting objects etc more intuitive and quicker with fewer key strokes. Unfortunately it will not open documents created in newer versions, it is necessary to open them with something else and then save them as a .doc. Obviously there are many things it cannot do but those are things I do not want to do in any case. For writing and printing letters etc it is perfect.
I have often seen it written that Office 2003 will not work with Windows 10 or 11 and you cannot have it installed alongside Office365 etc but in fact it works perfectly well.
That got me thinking, as my wife playfully jibes me about it occasionally - “Oh, another computer, what are you going to do with this one?”
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Sure I’m not the only aging (nearly used the word ‘elderly’, but pride stopped me) SFer who now finds it too painful to write well with a pen and is very grateful for keyboards.
Even with a fountain pen? I recently bought a lovely Waterman (my old one went missing) and the nib sort of glides over paper.
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