There is no pain. It's easy to change the default. And, "Save As" is easier to do in Office 2007 than previous versions.


>First of all, the new UI should have little or nothing to do with what Office outputs by default.
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>Most importantly, what you seem to be saying above is that Microsoft NEEDS some way to induce users to upgrade and this technique is a perfectly acceptable one. (note, I don't have Office 2007 so I'm really talking through my hat here)...
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>I disagree. Microsoft ought to give users a way to set the 'standard default output format' for each of the tools in the package and definitely NOT require that a user set this every single time they save a document. That is an onerous requirement easily forgotten, probably resulting in disgruntlement in those people inadvertently sent the wrong format. Which can hurt *MY* business and *MY* credibility.
>Microsoft apparently experienced difficulties getting customers off of Office 97 despite newer fancier GUIs and extended capabilities/features. So now they've adopted this technique, which can only give *me* added pain. Having to do it EVERY TIME is painful, and forgetting to do so can cause even greater harm.
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>If Microsoft *NEEDS* users to upgrade to Office 2007 the proper way to do it is to make the product so valuable compared to the older ones that users clearly see the benefits and jump to the new one. Inflicting pain on users is NOT the way to generate upgrades... at least in my opinion.
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>SNIP