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Force Office 2000 to Open All Documents in the Same Window

New in Office 2000 is the use of an SDI interface, where each document has its own full window (the MDI interface has one main window with several document sub-windows). To turn this option off in Excel, Access, Powerpoint, etc. and restore the simpler, more comfortable, and more familiar interface, follow these steps:

  • Select Options from the Tools menu, and choose the View tab.
  • Turn off the Windows in Taskbar option, and click Ok.


However, as part of Microsoft's goal of seamless interface consistency, this option is available in every Office application except Word. To turn it off in Word 2000, you need to install this custom macro:

  • Download the Word 2000 Fix (created by R. Soldaat).
  • Extract the file, Windows in Taskbar.dot, and place it in the MS Office Startup folder.
  • If you don't know where your MS Office Startup folder is, open Word, and select Options from the Tools menu. Choose the File Locations tab, and look at the Startup entry.

Note: Microsoft fixed this design flaw in Office XP, but neglected to do anything about it in any of the service releases for Office 2000.


Written by: Annoyances.org
Last updated: Tuesday, March 15, 2005

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