How do I get rid of ribbons and go back to old office menus?

Templates! Don't get me started with that madness. I immediately assumed that a template for company letterhead, reports, forms, spreadsheets etc. would get us productive in ribbon ****... Only to find that "templates" are not saved into "my documents", but are buried deep in the program files where no one can find them - and they are not backed up in normal backup builds. Therefore templates disappear when the regular Windows slowdown requires a reformat of software. Yet more hours redistributing files and getting people back to work. Utter waste.

Again, I AM agreeing with you on most points and critics about the new UI interface. I had to manage that with 150 engineers and staff. I am not saying your company will save money with the new interface nor that people will work faster or better. It won't.

There are only two paths available for a business already caught up in the Microsoft system: put out money to follow or put out money to change boat.

Both cases are costly. I am not saying its ok. I'm saying that it is our jobs to deal with that dementia. And find solutions that will not cause the companies we work for to sink under the terrible human and technological strain Microsoft latest marketing coup has put on all the businesses that function on their technologies.

So your job is to find solutions. And you came here and ask about one solution you have envisioned.

Putting the old UI style up.

What we are telling you is that yes, such thing exists but it is not viable. Because Word 2010 is not just about a UI, the whole software has evolved and it is now imperative that people use the proper methods and techniques and - sit down or grasp for your life - in the proper SEQUENCE. Otherwise, you will have a lot more to deal with than lost in the maze users: tons of corrupted documents and unstable templates.

See, Word team did the 2010 interface with an assumption that corporations will produce their templates and teach people how to use them.

In fact, very few companies have done that. Companies assume that  people can use word-processing software and do what they have to do with it. But if you have never been though how to drive stick shift correctly in the first place if we sit you in a race car, chances are you are going to brake the gear box.

See 2010 is both a development facility and a front-end transportation device.  You have all the tools and parts and pieces you need to make a car, or a jet for that matter, and some cute assemblages out of the box.  When you go in that garage, what you want to do is take a car and drive where to your destination.  If you are going to some Alaskan ice covered road, chances are you will want to do something with your tires.  Spikes, chains, the choice is considerable and the method to get there as well.

Our job is to preset the various vehicles our people will need, train them how to use them properly, how to do common fixes and to NOT TOUCH the assembly line!

Again, we did not really choose to purchase a Boing assembling facility but that's what we got.

Your best strategy is to hire the services (employee or consultant) of a good DOoc coordinator and work with him/her to achieve the following:

Make real templates (not these document samples most people use) served either through "my templates" on each user station, or a Sharepoint location whatever but not on public server file folder!

Train employees to use templates and not mess with the ribbon Hazardous features (bullets, numbering among others)

You can even have the DOoc  design an exportable UI set up that will be more convenient for your people, or teach your people how to easily modify the QAT or the ribbon to put the commands they want where they want it (e.g. quick parts and construction blocks).

Trust me, most people think they know how to use Word, but they don't. And when they get to 2010, that is the trial proof! And most resources and schools teach people about Word, not about making Word work for us.

The good news is that once they are trained to use 2010 properly, they will work efficiently and be adaptable to whatever new tile (or evolution! ;) Ms or others see fit.

I quit my job as an employee because I find that I do a much more useful job as a consultant helping companies transition to this new way of working.

The conclusion:

Training and templates.

I believe that most people here agree with you : that quote has run through my mind countless times!

In fact, I don't know if you recall Honda Accord Sedan of 1987? This care was PURRfect.  It was reliable, and so much fun to drive with enough power and punch to it. And the price too was perfect: 14k-16k full equipped. It had EVERYTHING I NEED in a car. No more, no less.  Why, oh why did Honda change the recipe? Now we have to fork out 26+k to get an Accord, which is boaty and not at all the economic fun drive I remember.

I believe there are still a few of these Accord running here and there. And despite the nostalgia and frustration I feel that you can't get that fair-priced-just-what-you-need bundle in a car nowadays, I moved on because, well, I live in this world NOW, and try make the best out of it. When I move out of the city, my new car will be electrical.

I also understand the need to ventilate and get the frustration out (you should write to MS since the people here have no pull or relation to MS: we're just users helping users).

For my part, as a former desktop publishing and office automation operations coordinator for an engineering firm and also senior DTP technician at a large law firm, I have determined that it is common to find that as much as 42% of an 15-pages expertise document are DOo costs with the new UI while this was about 32 percent with the old one or in a managed migration towards the new one. Both scenarios are extremly high.  I developed an integrated strategy that bring this ratio down to 18%, a streamlined figure that is coherent with what is being produced.