I already hated Office's Save and Open dialog boxes for a number of reasons. 1) They are not OS standard and thus not the same across all apps (also working on Mac where all open/save dialogs ARE the same) 2) they are not consistent in UI (too long a rant to insert here but I am open to speak to a MS UI expert to explain live over Teamviewer for example) 3) the open the virtual door to other apps inventing their own open/save dialog (like Adobe Acrobat is doing .. argggg) Now Office has an even newer dialog box for first time save. I HAAAAATE IT. Is there a way to disable it?

marathonmax Don’t know if you figured it out, found this at https://support.office.com/en-us/article/use-save-as-on-the-file-menu-cf7536a3-6842-4056-b9cc-443a7f44b104. If you're used to using the Save As dialog box from earlier versions of Office, you can go back to using that. Click File > Options > Save, and then check the Don’t show the Backstage when opening or saving files box. The setting applies to all your Office programs. If you want to use the Save As dialog box without making a setting across Office programs, just press F12 instead of Ctrl+S when you save a file. Hope it helped.

Yes you can disable both Backstage and the new save dialog, but what if your only beef is Microsoft shifting the default storage location to OneDrive? "Well the user can change the default..." - Screw that! Most of the time users don't know what they are doing when something unexpected happens. Organizations need the ability to control this stuff - from day 0, not in the next deployment cycle, or after they get X number of complaints. Ideally Organizations should have the option to freeze the behavior of the software and "Allow" new functionality after it has been risk-assesed and all users retrained.

NDS3010The goog old “Save As” still exists. It just isn’t anywhere in the ribbon. But it can be easily put again in place. 1‐ In the Quick Access Toolbar (near the top left corner of the window, where the undo and redo commands are), click on the little downward triangle. 2‐ In the menu that opens, select down there “More Commands”. You will go directly to a section of the “Word Options” settings windows, named “Customize Quick Access Toolbar”. 3‐ In the right side of this window, just bellow “Choose command”, you will see a dropdown box with “More frequent commands” select. Bellow it, there is a list box with several commands in alphabetical order. Roll them down until you see the “Save As” command. 4‐ Select the “Save As” command in the list box do the left and click the “Add” button near the center of the window, and the “Save As” command will show up in list box to the right, just below the “Redo” command. 5‐ You can change the position of the “Save As” command among the others in this list box using the “Move Up” and “Move Down” buttons (mini‐triangles pointing upwards and downwards) just to the right. You can do this to any other command in this list box, by the way. 6‐ Click the “Ok” button in the lower right corner of the window and you are done. Now, the “Save As” command appears near the “Undo” and “Redo” buttons in the Quick Access Toolbar. Note that, when you pause the cursor on the command you just added, the label “Save As (12)” shows up, indicating that this is the “Save As” that is called when you press the F12 key, the one that doesn’t use the infamous backstage.

NDS3010 , the question was about the new save dialog, not the backstage. Is there a way to diable the new save dialog so we can use Ctrl + S to get to the old save dialog (rather than having to use a new/different shortcut in F12)?

jtmss If i understand your question correctly, then i think that this is the change your looking for. When i press CTRL + s, on a unsaved document, with the "Don't show the Backstage....." option enabled, then i get the old style save as.. dialog. Attached is a recording from Windows Steps Recorder, showing what it does at my PC. The file is zipped, cant post MHTML files here. Edit: you can click on the screenshots to enlarge the picture. Is this is not what your looking for, then i'm not sure i understand what you are looking for.

How to disable New save dialog | Microsoft Community Hub

18 Replies

cjbarth
Brass Contributor
Jan 12, 2024
I too hate this new dialog, it wastes so much time. What is more, I've already configured all my shortcuts, favorites, and pins on the system dialog so that _any_ program I'm in can benefit from them, so Office is actively hostile toward me in this case. This thread caused me to look closer at this persistent annoyance and to go to Options -> Save and turn off "Don't show the Backstage when opening or saving files with keyboard shortcuts". This has the added benefit of working when clicking the save icon on new documents.

Honestly, this new Backstage thing was getting so annoying I was starting to go to Explorer, right-click, new Word document, and then type my name and then open from there so that I didn't have to deal with all the extra clicks in Word to save something. What a disaster that new UI is, and I'm someone who likes change and keeps everything in OneDrive. That new UI was just so many more clicks to get where I wanted to go and violated mussel memory. If that were the new Windows system dialog, fine, then I can build new mussel memory, but as a one-off is it horrible.
bobscompany
Copper Contributor
Mar 30, 2022
Still infuriating that we have to use this unconventional shortcut just to be able to save something without a ridiculous interface. The "old" save dialog worked perfectly, the new one invariably requires two clicks to choose my save location. Weird that MS would choose to deviate away from the standard Windows save dialog too.

I guess someone was following the "If it aint broke, let's fix it" design philosophy.

Big thanks for the F12 tip, I guess I'll have to get used to using that despite using Ctrl + S everywhere else.
- Queenyxox
  Copper Contributor
  Dec 08, 2023
  bobscompany
  I customized my Quick Access Toolbar to include "Save As" command. When I want to save my file using a different name, I click on the "Save As" icon on the Quick Access Toolbar, and it will open to the location of the first Word file.
- egelwan
  Copper Contributor
  Jul 05, 2022
  bobscompany: if you don't want to learn a new keyboard shortcut, you can assign Ctrl-S in place of F12! Or anything else you like. Options>customize Ribbon>Keyboard.
Piecevcake
Copper Contributor
Sep 19, 2021
Remap the Alt_F,A shortcut to the command for F12.. (You can still access the backstage by pressing Alt_F)
NDS3010
Copper Contributor
Aug 04, 2019
marathonmax
Don’t know if you figured it out, found this at https://support.office.com/en-us/article/use-save-as-on-the-file-menu-cf7536a3-6842-4056-b9cc-443a7f44b104.

If you're used to using the Save As dialog box from earlier versions of Office, you can go back to using that. Click File > Options > Save, and then check the Don’t show the Backstage when opening or saving files box. The setting applies to all your Office programs. If you want to use the Save As dialog box without making a setting across Office programs, just press F12 instead of Ctrl+S when you save a file.

Hope it helped.
- annbm01
  Copper Contributor
  Jul 30, 2020
  Thank you. This helped me.
- jtmss
  Copper Contributor
  Feb 07, 2020
  NDS3010 , the question was about the new save dialog, not the backstage. Is there a way to diable the new save dialog so we can use Ctrl + S to get to the old save dialog (rather than having to use a new/different shortcut in F12)?
  - NDS3010
    Copper Contributor
    Feb 07, 2020
    jtmss If i understand your question correctly, then i think that this is the change your looking for. When i press CTRL + s, on a unsaved document, with the "Don't show the Backstage....." option enabled, then i get the old style save as.. dialog.
    
    Attached is a recording from Windows Steps Recorder, showing what it does at my PC. The file is zipped, cant post MHTML files here.
    
    Edit: you can click on the screenshots to enlarge the picture.
    
    Is this is not what your looking for, then i'm not sure i understand what you are looking for.
    Steps change save file.zip687 KB
- the_Muppet_Owen
  Copper Contributor
  Sep 04, 2019
  Yes you can disable both Backstage and the new save dialog, but what if your only beef is Microsoft shifting the default storage location to OneDrive?
  
  "Well the user can change the default..." - Screw that! Most of the time users don't know what they are doing when something unexpected happens. Organizations need the ability to control this stuff - from day 0, not in the next deployment cycle, or after they get X number of complaints.
  
  Ideally Organizations should have the option to freeze the behavior of the software and "Allow" new functionality after it has been risk-assesed and all users retrained.

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How to disable New save dialog

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