Checking style in proofing in Word 2016

Thanks, Jay.

Although Office has indeed reached v16.0.7167.2040, Nicole's post referred to an English Style Options patch that is only available to Insiders (that is, beta-testers).  And only Office 365 subscribers are eligible to join the Insider programme.  Those of us who paid a shed-load of bucks up front can suffer and Nicole doesn't even care enough to let us become beta-testers.

Microsoft is losing its way and deserves to be outstripped by smarter folk.

In all fairness to the subscribers (myself included, the OP on this issue), you say you paid a "shed-load of bucks up front," which isn't exactly true. You paid a "shed-load of bucks all at once," but we've paid a shed-load of bucks for a few years and continue to do so.

Robert:

Yes, we all pay a shed-load of bucks, one-time payment or subscription.  But 365 subscribers are paying "more" for additional features, like additional OneDrive space, Skype time, more applications (365 Home has Access and Outlook, while Home and Student don't), not just the extra "new features" that are subsequently released.

I have a couple fundamental philosophical objections to this marketing scam.

First, for this specific issue, missing grammar feature, I don't think it should be limited to subscribers because it is NOT a "new" feature, it is bug fix for a mistake made in the initial release of Office 2016. The bug fix really should be given to all Office 2016 users!

Second, more general, while I understand the reason for limiting "new features" to subscribers (it is a simple marketing scam to encourage, aka blackmail, more people to switch to 365 because it makes more profit to MS!). This strategy introduces complexity to support, is the person using one-time payment or 365 so you can figure out if they have access to a specific "new feature" or not. Over the last 10 years MS has done many things to "dumb down" Office and Windows to make them "simpler to support".  Things like:

• the (hated <grin>) ribbon which eliminated option for uses to customize the menus
• look at options to "personalize" windows desktop (desktop colors, fonts, Window frame size)
• "click to run" installations forcing all or nothing installation only on C: drive.

Given that background, it seems absurd to return to 1980's marketing where there were different sets of functions in applications, separated by price.  * had ALL of the functionality. (Now we have 365 which is more expensive (in the long run!) and the "second class customers" who buy one-time payment licenses)  Back when Office was created, no matter which bundle you got, the applications all had the same functionality. Office bundles were only differentiated by the collection of specific apps in the bundle.   This allowed home and student users to "learn" and "play with" "business specific" features/functions on their own time.  Being able to learn these functions in cheaper bundles, like Home and Student, allowed them to carry those skill over to work.  But for the last few years Visio and Project have had "Pro" and "Standard" versions as well as Office 365.  In Office 2013/365 the "new features" were not an issue because MS simple did not bother to release many. But (finally!) with 2016/365, in the last year MS has released relatively many new and significant new features.

But trying to have this discussion is a waste of time because MS simply does not want to hear it. They just want the increased profits.