Question about MS Office

[debthaven]

I'm on a Mac. My hard drive died last Sat, DH replaced it.

But I lost Office, I cannot get it to work because it asks me for a 25-character code, and the code I have has only 20 characters.

No I have not tried MS Assistance because I read up on it and everybody in my situation appears to have needed to repurchase it.

My school offers Office to students and permanent staff, but not to adjuncts. I'm trying to get around this with my school's IT department, since I NEED it for school. 

In the meantime I've been looking at prices online ... I see versions for 40 euros and versions of what seems to be the same thing for 150 euros.

From what I can see, the 40-euro version is only good for one year.

Am I correct? Is this even possible?! Is this the reason for the difference in price?! I (We) only need it for 1 computer.

ETA: I had Office 2011 ... that costs 150 euros to purchase!!! So DH added memory and I just upgraded to El Capitan, so I can now theoretically run a more recent version of Office. I only use it for simple things ... I don't need the most recent version, but the most recent version is also (by far) the cheapest.

[debthaven]

Thanks Rukh, that's what I thought. But I wanted to make sure.

[Tennesseer]

DH-how did MS Office end up on your computer in the first place.  Did it come with it already loaded or did you purchase it and then add it to your computer?

I ask because I purchased MS Office (Student) on-line from Microsoft for an old computer and downloaded it.  When I bought a new computer last year, I simply went to my Microsoft account on the Internet and downloaded it onto my new computer.  No charge as I had purchased it on-line.

[debthaven]

It burns me because the one I installed was legit. My ex had given DD one of his office's "five installations" and DD never used it, so she passed it onto me. Of course now she can't find the installation disks.

[debthaven]

Tenn, see my next post.

[dannylion]

I think I read somewhere that MS Office is going to be switching over to a yearly-lease model. The expensive one might be one of the last versions that you just buy and install. I don't know what the relative advantages/disadvantages of the two types would be, so I can't offer any advice. The 25-digit code might be based on the new lease model. I'd recommend calling MS support to see if there is some way to just reinstall the one you have. I think you're supposed to be able to install a purchased copy on up to 3 machines (or I could be thinking about something else, but that's my recollection). if you just need to reinstall it on the same computer after a catastrophic crash, I would think that should be possible and MS support should be able to tell you what you need to do to make that happen.

[debthaven]

After the hard-drive change, it was still on there, but only in "read" mode. And it wouldn't accept the 20-character code.

I have spent a LOT of time on this since last weekend. I'm OK with purchasing Office, I just want to get a decent price and understand what I'm buying (ie in fact at 40 euros I'm not really buying it, I'm just "renting" it for a year).

That's fine, but I want to understand.

[debthaven]

Thanks Danny, that would explain it!

ETA: I'm going to give it this week to fight it out with my school, then if I still can't get it through them, it's fine, I'll "rent" it for 40 euros a year.

I just wanted to make sure I was understanding it correctly.

[Tennesseer]

DH-if you are going to purchase MS Office again, think about downloading it from Microsoft's website.  You don't have to worry about misplacing disks.  

[debthaven]

Good point Tenn ... I was thinking that it would be better to have the physical object but you're right.

ETA: This said I'm going to try harder to get it through school first.

[Happy prose]

Use openoffice.org. It's free and compatible with all. 

[debthaven]

Happy prose, I used that before getting Office, and no, it's not 100% compatible. The school admins couldn't always read my Excel marks sheets, there were strange symbols sometimes, etc.

The school uses Office so it's just easier to use the same thing.

[Knee Deep in Water Chloe]

Debt, I am in my second year of the lease. I have paid $60 per year. It is downloaded straight from MS, so no discs.  I found out about a month after I paid for the second year that DH's work has it for free. AAARRRGGG. Well, next year I'll do that. I use excel, publisher, and word regularly and PPT often, so it is worth it to me to have it. 

[Baby Fawkes]

Oct 3, 2015 14:17:04 GMT -5 Happy prose said:

Use openoffice.org. It's free and compatible with all. 

I agree with this if openoffice provides what you need. For a lot of people either openoffice or goodgle docs will work, but in a straight comparison both or them fall way short in terms of functionality. For some people you really need the extra features that make it worth paying the price for MS Office.

I'm a subscriber to office 365 and I think it's worth the yearly cost for the extra features, but I'm a fairly heavy user of Excel and Visio, which is where the competitors really fall behind in my experience.