Microsoft
ChrisTribble I still suspect that the update level of a Word installation does not necessarily determine whether it displays legacy or modern comments, and neither does the document. Since modern comments seem to have been unlocked and pushed upon users bit by bit over a matter of weeks if not months, it seems that the switch was triggered remotely and only activated code that had been included in the program by some prior update but lay dormant until then. This also makes sense since the ‘fix’ was to edit the registry to turn off experimental functionality, but MS kept overriding and overwriting this each time the program restarted to turn it back on. I assume that the current state of affairs is simply that MS has a.) remotely triggered a switch back and b.) no longer forces modern comments for the time being, though the code is still there and ready to be switched back on.
Since you were still in the Insider program when they switched off modern comments, you might have “missed” the trigger and as PeterL64 suggests your installation is stuck until triggered again. One quick idea might be to execute the registry edit and see if that now prompts a change that sticks (for a while).
And thanks to everyone for patiently explaining, again and again, to those responsible why it is obvious that this simply will not do for a variety of professions and use cases - and will not do at all.
