Hello,

Is anyone having trouble with the newest version of OneNote? It comes with Office 365 and no matter what version you had it automatically upgrades to this and won't let you install any previous versions. At this point I'd be happier with OneNote 2003.

Here's what's happening:

When I open OneNote, first it says, "Microsoft Office has identified a potential security concern. This location may be unsafe. C:\Start\Home.one Do you want to continue?" Whether I click yes or no, it says, "We couldn't open that location."

I don't have a folder on my computer named C:\Start and I don't have a Home.one file anywhere. I don't know what the warning is for or how to keep it from coming up each time I open OneNote.

The next issue is, I like my Notebook List on the left and my Page List on the Right. In this version I've never used before, it puts the page list on the left and doesn't show the Notebook List at all. I have to click View | Tabs Layout | Horizontal Tabs and then go into File | Options | Display and check Show Notebook List on the Left and Show Page List on the Right. Then I have to click on the Notebook tab and click Pin so the Notebook List shows at all.

The biggest problem is, it never saves these settings, so I have to do this every time I open the program. Because of this, it's gotten so it's not worth it to use at all anymore. Apparently there is no way to go back and use an old version you like, they're all forced to be updated to whatever it is I have now.

Is there any way to get this to save the settings I enter?

I've tried Evernote and I don't like it, and I don't want to pay for the full version of something I don't like. I've always used OneNote and liked it, but I can't go through these settings issues every single time I use it.

Here are the solutions Microsoft recommended, which I tried and didn't work.

To fix the warning at start-up:



- Open OneNote and go to File > Options > Trust Center > Trust Center Settings > Trusted Locations. - Click Add new location and browse to the folder where your notebooks are stored. Make sure to check the box for Subfolders of this location are also trusted. - Click OK and restart OneNote.
I don't have a Trusted Locations so this didn't work.

To fix the settings that revert back every time I close the program:

- Open OneNote and go to File > Options > Display. - Under Horizontal Tabs Layout, check Show notebook list on left and Show page list on right. - Under Vertical Tabs Layout, check Show notebook list on left and Show page list on left. - Click OK and restart OneNote. - Go to View > Tabs Layout > Vertical Tabs. - Click on the notebook tab and click Pin Notebook Pane to Side.

I don't have a Vertical Tabs Layout, so this didn't work.

Then they gave me various different ways of resetting OneNote in case it was corrupted, which I did, but that didn't fix the situation.

Then they told me to uninstall and reinstall OneNote, but when I tried that, it uninstalled ALL of Microsoft Office 365 and it took me several days to get it back. When I did, OneNote still had the same issues.

One person said to do a fresh install of Windows and start all over again, but this is a brand new computer and everything else on it is working fine, including all the other Office programs except OneNote.

If anyone has a solution to these issues, I would appreciate it. I'm also looking for a OneNote alternative now because I really do need something like this for my work.

Thank you.

Microsoft OneNote 2021 version 2309
Windows 11 Pro