What Are "Featured" Templates and Why Do I Want To See Them? Word 2016, Excel 2016, Publisher 2016 (but not PowerPoint 2016)

MS has 4 "secret" (undocumented) labels for categories of templates. The names depend on where you store them.  Take a look a this wiki that describes what I found out about the various template categories

2016 version : https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/msoffice/wiki/msoffice_word-msoffice_custom/word-2016-templates-featured-vs-shared-vs-custom/d23e9c8f-5420-4bcd-84fd-e502e21ab0a5

Thanks.  I actually had seen your post.  I assume that the "Featured" templates are at some Microsoft URL, but I can't seem to reach them.  I do get results if I use the "Search for online templates," so it's not as if these Office programs are totally disconnected from the Internet.

I'm not a heavy Office user -- mostly small docs and fairly simple PowerPoint and Excel jobs -- so I've never really learned about using templates.  Still, it's annoying to be missing a feature even if you don't use it most of the time.

This is what I get:

So you have the 2 default template tabs.

And you to appear to have a network issue which is preventing the default templates from downloading from the internet. That is one of the "advantages" of "online services". If there is a network issue of any kind, you are out of luck. In the past, the default templates were saved on your local drive, so they were always there.

What your specific network issue is, there is no clear indication.  Unfortunately MS can be somewhat fussy about networking. Even though other applications have no problem reaching their internet destinations, things like update and install my whine about the network.

Here is a generic list of tips that have helped with Windows Update problems. Maybe one of them will help with your current problem

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/office/wiki/office_365hp-office_install/office-365-install-network-related-problems-and/4d7f4eb0-5e91-4563-ace2-825ee64e0b9a?tm=1443211564751

A generic "network issue" wouldn't explain why PowerPoint 2016 doesn't have the same problem as the other applications, but I'll look into the various network related fixes -- a quick glance shows that I've already tried several of them.  It would be helpful if there was a more meaningful error message (a Microsoft-wide problem) or at least an URL to check separately (Microsoft's secrecy once again makes life difficult).

Interesting, I have Office 2016 on Windows 10 and have no problem getting the default templates in Word, PPT and Excel (I just checked again). Even "signing out" from Office I still get some (different) default templates.

When it was just one person having the problem, I thought it was a local problem with their computer and/or network. But now that more than one person is having the problem it appears to be more systemic. It is interesting that both of you are on Windows 7.  I still believe it could be a "network connection" issue, just possibly wider than I initially suspected. That being said, I am surprised that we have not seen more similar complaints. It could be that most people don't care about / use the default templates.

One reason that a problem, even a "network connection" problem, does not affect all of the Office applications is simply that all of the Office applications started as totally independently developed programs.  "Office" was a marketing scam, pardon me "strategy" (a massively effective one) of stuffing those formerly independent programs into a single box and price. Slowly, (very slowly), MS has been working to make the programs work together, share feature sets.  But if you look closely, you will see that some features have different icons or lists of sub-features or attributes.  And the most obvious signal that the programs are independent is that you cannot simply "transplant" a macro from one program to another. If I remember correctly, PPT was bought by MS, not initially created by MS. I know for sure that Visio used to be independent. Even today, the applications have totally independent development teams that are only provided some overall guidance by the "Office team".

As I said before, other people who have seen error messages related to "network issues" while doing Office or Windows updates were still able to post questions in this forum. They had general internet connectivity, but there were some VERY specific "network issues" that caused the updates to fail. The trick is finding that specific setting or "issue" that needed correction. Which is why the list of "generic" fixes has worked for some people. Since the information provided by MS does not point to a specific cause (shame on MS!), working through a laundry list of potential fixes eventually "accidentally trips over" the specific fix they need.  It is unfortunate that the list of fixes did not work in this case.

Now that there is more than one person with the problem, I will suggest again that one or both of you submit "Feedback" to MS about the problem to get their attention  on the issue.

Now that there is more than one person with the problem, I will suggest again that one or both of you submit "Feedback" to MS about the problem to get their attention  on the issue.

I'd be happy to do that (as unlikely as it would be to have any effect), but AFAIK, the "Feedback Hub" is for Windows 10 only.  Windows 7 has only about 8 months before the plug is pulled, and Microsoft isn't likely to devote any more than the absolute minimum amount of resources to Windows 7 issues.

It would be great if anyone with Windows 10 who is using Office 2016 (instead of Office 365) and has experienced this problem would submit feedback.

I'm sure that this is the case:  "It could be that most people don't care about / use the default templates."  I wouldn't even have noticed this issue but for the default setting to show the "Start" page when the program starts up.

Yes, the "Feedback Hub" is limited to Win 10. But link provides instructions on other ways to submit feedbacks. Specifically (in order of preference) direct links to application specific "UserVoice" websites, and instructions how to find the "Feedback" command in Office 2016.

Yes Win 7 is a on short life span. But you'd be surprised how many business users are still on Win 7. So, if enough people complain, MS will listen and do something because it is causing problems for one of their main target audiences.

Unfortunately, with a limited sample size of 3 users, only the 2 with Win 7 have the problem (so far). Yes I too hope (for your sake) that someone with Win 10 has the same problem ... <g>

You can also see templates in Microsoft PowerPoint because the cache area in "%localappdata%\Microsoft\Office\16.0\WebServiceCache\AllUsers\" has not yet been cleared/updated.

In a few days, Microsoft PowerPoint templates will also disappear.

I confirm the problem with the templates from "Microsoft Office 2016" ("Sorry, we had trouble getting the featured templates and can't show them right now.").

And I have the same problem for a few days in all the programs from the suite "Microsoft Office 2016" ("Sorry, we had trouble getting the featured templates and can't show them right now."), which is installed in Windows 7 SP1 with all updates to date.

Sorry for my bad English.

I forgot to say that in "Computer Management -> System Tools -> Event Viewer -> Windows Logs -> System", as of May 2, 2019, time: 18:00 (Romania time (+2h GMT) or in Redmond, where is headquarters Microsoft, when the time was 08:00), appear 2 error messages : "Schannel: The following fatal alert was received: 80" and "Schannel: The following fatal alert was received: 70" whenever Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, Microsoft PowerPoint, etc. opened. When one of the above mentioned programs opens directly with a file, the two error messages in Computer Management are no longer displayed.

I was googling the error codes. I found another question that references them:

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/all/event-viewer-id-36887-schannel-fatal-alert/707fead4-b079-4f4d-86a6-ba54636fa642?page=1

There is no new insights, yet.

There is a suggestion there that is worth you following.  Given these error messages, post your question in the following Technet and MSDN forums.  They are more "technically" oriented, this forum is more user interface / "how to" feature questions.

Kindly post your question in the TechNet Server Forums.

http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/windowsserver/en-US/home?category=windowsserver

TechNet Forums:

https://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/home

MSDN Forums:

https://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/home

in that other question, the error you cited had an error code or "event ID" at the start. Do you see that too? 

I found these 2 previous questions / solutions that both point rather technical network issues

https://www.experts-exchange.com/questions/28360489/The-following-fatal-alert-was-generated-10-The-internal-error-state-is-10.html

https://blog.ittoby.com/2014/07/why-schannel-eventid-36888-36874-occurs.html

There are a bunch more hits in my bing search. You may want to take a look at them

https://www.bing.com/search?q=%22Schannel%3A+The+following+fatal+alert+was+received%3A+80%22&qs=n&form=QBLH&sp=-1&pq=%22schannel%3A+the+following+fatal+alert+was+received%3A+80%22&sc=0-54&sk=&cvid=0425434B60C343B8AA2751E047980683