MS will NOT provide classic menus for Office 2007 ribbon applications.
There is no assuming about this one, this is a totally definite thing.
Menus are dead in those applications and will NOT come back. MS is not
going to reconsider this decision nor is there any surprise for everyone
in store. MS had made very, very clear that the ribbon is here to stay
and that there won't be any alternative UI. Anything belongs into dream
world and simply represents wishful thinking.

Microsoft didn't introduce the ribbon just because they felt like
providing a new argument for marketing. If you read the User Interface
blog (search for Jensen Harris on Google), you will find out that they
had no other choice. The menu-style user interface simply would have not
been able to accommodate all the new features of Office 2007. In
addition, most users only use 20% of the available functionality. A
chief reason for that was that they couldn't figure out how to use the
rest or didn't even know that they existed.

People have asked for a classic menu mode since the first day of this
beta back in November, and the responses by Microsoft on this topic were
crystal clear: no, it won't happen.

Office 2007 is going to be a relearning experience for most Officer
users. If a user is not willing to go through this learning process,
then they should choose the existing classic menu mode: Office 2003.

Patrick Schmid
--------------
http://pschmid.net


"SteveC" wrote in message
:

Office XP and 2003 compatibility sounds good. At our school, half of our
PCs are still using Office 2000. We try to be meticulous with our licenses
and not upgrade without one (smile). I think MS will rethink the "classic"
menu thing. They even had one that emulated WordPerfect a while back (95 or
97). I think it will help sell the product. Even IE 7 lets you have the
menu bar. Having it available (why not with the alternate key as with IE)
would help newbies a lot. Those of us using the Beta will be used to the
ribbon by the time the product ships, but how about the people they want to
buy the product. Most of them are not as adventuresome as us.

"Patrick Schmid" wrote in message
...
Milly is right. Only Office XP and 2003 will be supported with the
Compatibility Pack and Awareness Update