Office 2016 uninstalls my Visio 2013

'Office' is an overarching marketing umbrella for MS business productively apps, so there is no compulsion to bundle them.

The situation we have here is that MS is marketing a bunch of apps for which they do not EXPLICITLY state in their advertising that they have dependencies such that they ALL have to be at the same version level on the same machine.

This is what happens when product upgrade projects don't do their due diligence to make sure that consequences of product changes are propagated fully into the public sphere.

Yes, this is either a major blunder by someone in the MS Office team, our a deliberate ploy to make users buy the same applications again. I originally installed the Office 2016 Preview, but uninstalled it when I discovered that it has removed my copies of Visio 2013 and Project 2010. I was able to reinstall Visio 2013 from my Microsoft Account, but my copy of Project 2010 has gone forever, as I don't have the installation CD (if that was how I purchased it). As aaself-employed consultant, I need these applications for my work, but cannot afford to re-purchase software I already own just because Microsoft disowns users ofprevious versions. I had naively assumed that Microsoft would resolve the incompatibility of Office 2016 with the 2013 applications, but it would seem had they don't really care about existing customers. The relevant page on the Office 2016 section of their website merely tells you to purchase the new version of their applications, or forget about your Office 365 updates (the main argument for taking out a subscription). So now I and all the other users of 2013 versions are left high and dry. Not a good outcome, Microsoft.

Now here's the CATCH-22, which shows that this has really gone off the rails:

You cannot install either of general Office suite or Visio, WITHOUT uninstalling the other.

Presumably, the only way is to install one, then install the other at the same version level. You are damned if there is a problem with one that makes it unworkable for you to continue to use it.

This one-in/all-in way of doing software is just making for administrative and operational headaches.

SACK WHOEVER SIGNED OFF ON THIS!

Now, we have our Visio license under a separate MS ommicrosoft.com account to our two general Office licenses, mainly because Telstra didn't offer Visio at the time, but its price for the general office suite is still cheaper than MS direct. However, I suspect that that this catch-22 situation would still exist even if they were all on the same account.

So I have wasted my money purchasing Visio 2013 and a subscription to Office 365? If car manufacturers prevented you from using your older car whenever you upgraded another car to the latest model, there would be uproar! But Microsoft can quite happily tell me that my Visio 2013 is now useless to me, without any form of compensation. This is not the way to win friends. It also needs to be made abundantly clear in LARGE PRINT, not hidden in a message during the installation process. I wonder what the consumer advocates will have to say about this behaviour.