I bought and installed Office 2010 because a client insisted that 2003 was no longer secure after MS ceased support.

I hate the look and feel of 2010, especially the space-hogging ribbon, and its lack of user adaptability. I hate its steep learning curve with no real benefits over 2003. So my strategy is to create my work in 2003 and re-save final versions in 2010 for the client in question.

Unfortunately, every time I open 2010 it hijacks all Office file defaults, and I then have to reset them using Detect and Repair in 2003. The first time I installed it also hijacked Normal.dot without creating a backup and obliterated all my keyboard shortcuts and Autotext entries (Thanks MS), so I now have two separate Normal.dots in different directories.

Is there any way to make Office 2010 mind it's own business and leave my settings alone?

IMHO whoever told you that has no idea what they were talking about. Office 2003 remains quite secure and is likely to do so for however long you keep your AV software updated.
While I sympathise with you - I too initially didn't like the Ribbon - continuing to use Word 2003 rather defeats the purpose of the upgrade (i.e. the supposed greater security of Office 2010).
See: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2121447/
Word 2010 uses a different file - Normal.dotm - and doesn't affect your Normal.dot file. To regain your keyboard shortcuts and Autotext entries, you need only open the Normal.dot file for editing, then re-save it (in the new format) as Normal.dotm.

__________________
Cheers,
Paul Edstein
[Fmr MS MVP - Word]

Thanks for the reply Macropod.

"IMHO whoever told you that has no idea what they were talking about. Office 2003 remains quite secure and is likely to do so for however long you keep your AV software updated. "

I agree, but the prevailing opinion in Japan, where my clients are located, seems to be that the termination of support for 2003 means that security is somehow compromised. I've tried unsuccessfully to convince them otherwise.

I'll try the registry modification in the KB article. And then I'll wait on in the naive hope that MS will one day produce an update that just fixes bugs and introduces useful new functions without destroying the really great features of earlier versions.

Unfortunately, when a new paradigm is introduced to improve overall functionality, some individual items may suffer in the transition. Yes, some things are easier to do in Word 2003, but others are easier in Word 2007 & later.

I really didn't like the Ribbon at first, but now my primary Word processor is Word 2010 - I can switch seamlessly between the two versions, but I mostly only revert to Word 2003 when helping people with that & earlier versions.

__________________
Cheers,
Paul Edstein
[Fmr MS MVP - Word]