set new "autosave" toggle to off by default

And this feature which is supposed to save time, causes more loss of time than any other that has been pushed on end users. And when you do use the history to find the file you are looking for, when I go to save it and replace a file that causes the program to fail and restart which then losses the file I actually need. Auto save is not at all helpful.

There needs to be a global setting to turn it off.

I can understand that Undo is problematic in that 0.01% of cases of people editing the same document at the same time.

It's totally a lossage in every other case.

I totally second this reply. Awesome wording.

If I may add one bit, the most totally broken "feature" is the idea ofclearing the undo buffer.

Autosave might be bearable, if not for that - it totally skewers the single best idea that anyone ever brought to office automation, e.g. the ability to undo previous mistakes.

With Autosave on, either I realize I made a mistake within the time that Microsoft arbitrarily set, or I'm done. This is just so stupid.

Maybe their developers will also like a Code Management System that arbitrarily commits their changes every once in a while, as they go along building the code or revising it. Hey, wouldn't that be great.

I totally agree with your addendum. I wonder if their Code Management System is both the origin for this collaborative working idea and the reason for these issues with its implementation.

Clearing the undo buffer every AutoSave may be considered necessary for the MS Office collaborative working mechanism to work, but it really just reflects a failure to implement a collaborative Undo feature instead. 

My writing technique is not very concise - I tend to write my ideas down and then go back to revise the structure and content. With Undo I can go back beyond the error (e.g. deleted/moved the wrong paragraph), copy the original text (or cell, slide, etc.), redo the other editing and then paste the original text back in the document. Without it, I have to rewrite the text from scratch.

The current approach means that every AutoSave version of my document will contain uncorrected editing errors. I'm unlikely to be able to identify which previous version holds the latest pre-error contents or find all the errors in the previously saved versions.

I totally second this reply. Awesome wording.

If I may add one bit, the most totally broken "feature" is the idea ofclearing the undo buffer.

Autosave might be bearable, if not for that - it totally skewers the single best idea that anyone ever brought to office automation, e.g. the ability to undo previous mistakes.

With Autosave on, either I realize I made a mistake within the time that Microsoft arbitrarily set, or I'm done. This is just so stupid.

Maybe their developers will also like a Code Management System that arbitrarily commits their changes every once in a while, as they go along building the code or revising it. Hey, wouldn't that be great.

You can turn off AutoSave for each file that you want to only save changes manually using the AutoSave toggle at the top left of the application. Your preference will be remembered next time you open the file again. Visit this thread for instructions. 

I'm sorry to vent my frustrations on you but Microsoft appears to be unable to understand that when they develop something 'better' not everyone wants it stuffed down their throat. Microsoft has (yet again) implemented what they consider to be an evolutionary upgrade and decided to force its use, not just by making it a default but by removing the user's ability to disable the 'improvement', even though this may actually downgrade a specific user's operation.

The request here is simple - please provide your users with the optional ability to permanently disable this Autosave capability in all Office 2016 & 365 software (i.e. NOT just for individual documents/files), and enable us to return to our previous mode of operation until WE decide that the benefits outweigh the disadvantages.

DO NOT INSULT US BY PRETENDING THAT YOU MISUNDERSTAND THIS REQUEST.

If you have decided that you won't do this then please have the courage to make that clear to your users so that we can consider making the transition to a competitor Office supplier who is prepared to treat its users better.