Office 2003 - Any Guide How to Find Where Options are Hidden?

[jcp370]

My company just converted to Office 2003. Yesterday, my first day
using it, I spent the better part of 10 hours just trying to find and
turn off various default or pre-installed options in Office 2003 and
the 2003 versions of Word, Outlook, Excel, etc. that became apparent as
I tried to perform routine, daily tasks.

Is there some sort of guide to locating and getting rid of all of the
2003 changes that Microsoft decided we needed (and then proceeded to
hide) for Office and the other programs so that I can delete/change
those that make my job more difficult? I only found the answers to 2 of
them in MS Help.

Some examples - Word tables (never finished the new table I started);
"cascading" windows in taskbar (Word Ok, Excel problems, IE never
found); turning off grouping in my 150 + active and personal Outlook
folders (why should this program even think it can "Automatically Group
According to Arrangement" since it knows nothing about my work, some of
the "Arrangements" were absurd, but don't get me started on that
topic), finding the index to look things up in Help, etc., etc.

Is there somewhere to find this information? Because I (and my company)
can ill-afford to waste time that should be productive, while I search
for ways to quickly complete the same routine tasks I did before the
"upgrade". Thanks.

 

[Me]

My company just converted to Office 2003. Yesterday, my first day
using it, I spent the better part of 10 hours just trying to find and
turn off various default or pre-installed options in Office 2003 and
the 2003 versions of Word, Outlook, Excel, etc. that became apparent as
I tried to perform routine, daily tasks.

Is there some sort of guide to locating and getting rid of all of the
2003 changes that Microsoft decided we needed (and then proceeded to
hide) for Office and the other programs so that I can delete/change
those that make my job more difficult? I only found the answers to 2 of
them in MS Help.

Some examples - Word tables (never finished the new table I started);
"cascading" windows in taskbar (Word Ok, Excel problems, IE never
found); turning off grouping in my 150 + active and personal Outlook
folders (why should this program even think it can "Automatically Group
According to Arrangement" since it knows nothing about my work, some of
the "Arrangements" were absurd, but don't get me started on that
topic), finding the index to look things up in Help, etc., etc.

Is there somewhere to find this information? Because I (and my company)
can ill-afford to waste time that should be productive, while I search
for ways to quickly complete the same routine tasks I did before the
"upgrade". Thanks.

Why upgrade if you want it to stay the same?
There will always be a learning curve with a new version of Office, doubly
so if you jump two versions. Follow the tutorials and accept that you will
need to invest some time before you can gain some productivity.