365 changed Word default from '10 to '16--can't change back?

markg2 · 09 Feb 2016

We installed 365 on my wife's machine strictly to resolve an Outlook 2010 problem with intention to later, but not yet, remove Office 2010. At the moment she's using Word and Excel 2010.

However, 365 changed the default Word from 2010 to 2016. If you visit 'Change default programs' instead of there being Word '10 and '16 there are 2 instances of Word '16 thus disabling the ability to change the Word/Excel default back to 2010. The same condition hold true for at least Excel. At that point I was too annoyed to further investigate.

Since the components were installed from the MS website I haven't even looked at uninstall to see if, as with previous versions, you could remove individual modules since I'm concerned you would have to first do something on their website.

I'm also concerned that if I make an incorrect move in this regard the process will not correctly revert her Office 2010 to its previous condition and I'll end up having to reinstall Office '10 (without Outlook).

Is my current problem a known condition, bug or whatever? Is there a 'proper' way of fixing the problem?

Mark

Ranger4 · 09 Feb 2016

There are often problems running 2 versions of Office on the one computer. The best solution would be to select one version & then attempt to repair the offending program, in this case Outlook in 2010, or completely change over to Office 365 & uninstall Office 2010.

markg2 · 10 Feb 2016

She will move over completely to 365 as soon as she's completed a current project.

In the meantime, is there a way to migrate her 2010 Word/Excel defaults/preferences to Word/Excel 365? Or does one need to start all over since XP's save settings is not present in Win7?

Mark