How to turn off the reviewing, editing, and view feature?

Anonymous
2022-09-01T19:39:16+00:00

Since the reviewing, editing, and viewing feature I cannot copy and paste from a read only document. I have to gain access to even copy and paste. My job requires me to copy and paste from upwards of 10 documents. Since word won't let me copy and paste from a read-only or viewing document I have to check them out of our SVN every time. Does anyone know how to turn this feature off and go back to the original word?

Microsoft 365 and Office | Word | Other | Windows

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  1. Anonymous
    2022-11-30T12:36:53+00:00

    There definitely needs to be a way to disable this feature. Just the fact of having users on the same build number but getting a different feature set is annoying enough, but when we have a feature like this causing issues it's a nightmare.

    This feature is poorly implemented and causing many issues. Many of my clients are large law firms, and I'm starting to get reports of issues with lots of addins and macros that I have written for them - but it is only affecting some of their users. It's taken a while to work out that it is this feature causing the problem.

    As a developer, I cannot find any documentation on this feature. How do we programmatically find out if this feature in available, and what it is set to for that document? I've tried the previous document properties like ActiveDocument.ReadOnly or ActiveDocument.PretectionType and nothing matches. Plus the errors coming back are inconsistent at best.

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  2. Anonymous
    2022-10-31T13:08:56+00:00

    Yeah, Microsoft roll out features like this independent of the build number. It makes no sense. The feature is actually called Interactivity Mode.

    We've rolled back affected users to Semi-Annual Channel and, so far, this feature has not come back. I hope to god if it does, there is an option to disable it in Settings.

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  3. Anonymous
    2022-10-06T16:39:28+00:00

    The "Fix" I found was to change our update channel from Current to Semi-Annual which hasn't been affected yet.

    https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/deployoffice/change-update-channels

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  4. Anonymous
    2022-09-20T15:10:38+00:00

    I am on Microsoft® Word for Microsoft 365 MSO (Version 2208 Build 16.0.15601.20148) 32-bit and I still have the Editing, Reviewing, Viewing dropdown on my menu bar.

    My colleague is on the same build and does not have the button. I don't understand what controls this button's appearance.

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  5. Anonymous
    2022-09-16T16:17:40+00:00

    I have tried to give feedback about this issue, but to no avail. That is why I started this thread. Microsoft answered at the beginning, but did not help. At least people on here are trying to solve the problem with brainstorming. I just want the feature turned off. Do you know how?

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