Killing Microsoft Word's "New Comments"

Yesterday I opened #Microsoft Word , which I do almost every day. Overnight Microsoft had put down a new comments interface. It is, in my view, ghastly: comments are in a separate column, not clearly linked to the text and you need to post them.

If the manufacturer of my car arrived in the middle of the night and changed how the controls on my car operated without me knowing, I would probably sue it. Unfortunately, we mostly have to live with this with software.

I spent a few hours in the early hours of this morning finding out how to get back to something I can live with. I looked through various suggestions on editing the registry and lots of comments saying it is not possible. Ultimately, there is an easy fix for now. Simply open File->Options->General and click on enable modern comments so the tick in the box disappears and restart Word.

When you reopen your document you are back to the familiar comments.

Unfortunately, having killed this and driven a stake through its heart, there is a bit of bad news. I understand that Microsoft has indicated that it intends to revive the corpse and that the ability to turn this off will go away in time.

If you dislike it as much as I do, please send them feedback. Just click on Help -> Feedback and send Microsoft your feedback.