I'm surprised no one here mentioned backwards compatibility as the likely ultimate reason Microsoft hasn't fixed this by default yet.
As others have mentioned, the "fix" of turning off auto-formatting is already available. But many here are wondering my Microsoft hasn't fixed the default.
I assume it's for the same reason Microsoft Excel purposely claims the date 1900-02-29 is valid, to be compatible with Lotus-1-2-3. I assume many legacy spreadsheets would break unpredictably if interpreting values as dates by default changed.
As others have mentioned, the "fix" of turning off auto-formatting is already available. But many here are wondering my Microsoft hasn't fixed the default.
I assume it's for the same reason Microsoft Excel purposely claims the date 1900-02-29 is valid, to be compatible with Lotus-1-2-3. I assume many legacy spreadsheets would break unpredictably if interpreting values as dates by default changed.