MS Office problem

[Old and Horrified]

I have a refurbished second hand Windows 10 desktop machine which has worked fine since I bought it 18 months ago. It came with MS Office Professional Plus 2013.
Yesterday I got the following message when I tried to open Word - "This copy of Microsoft Office is not activated. You have 2 days left to activate. Make sure you are connected to you corporate network etc. etc."

Well, I don't have a corporate network, just plain home broadband. I though maybe the computer's internal date got corrupted, but that is fine.
Am I going to loose MS Office in 2 days time? Or could it maybe be something to do with the latest Win 10 updates? Has anyone else seen this?
I've tried searching on line with out luck. Any Ppruners have a suggestion?

[PDR1]

It sounds like your machine was originally a company one, and that company had an enterprise or site license form office rather than purchasing individual copies (very common as it's cheaper for any company with more than a dozen PCs). Such licenses usually need the PC to connect to the license server every few days/weeks/months (depends on the aprticular deal) to re-validate the authorisation. You can check this by firing up word (or excel, or power point) and looking at the Help page in the File tab. On the right of that page it will tell you what version of the product you have, when it was activated and has a link for "additional version & copyright information". Clicking that link brings up a box telling you who the software is licensed to. If it talks about a corporate license then yes, you are about to lose your copy of office because whoever sold the machine to you had no legal right to sell you the copy of Office.

I hate to be the harbinger of bad news. but this may also mean your Windows 10 is unlicensed, because W10 was never free to commercial users. That's not so easy to check I'm afraid.

PDR

[kenparry]

If your MS Office stops working, there is an easy and free solution. LibreOffice (google for a download site) will provide all the functionality that you are likely to need, and is compatible with the relevant file types (and others). I have been using it for years with no problems.

[Old and Horrified]

Yes - I did wonder about the legality of the software but the fact that it worked fine for 18 months seemed to indicate it was legal. The guy I bought it from still has his shop so I will take it back if it does cr@p out.

Interesting risk on the Win 10 license as well. I have just done a full back up just in case.I am familiar with Open office and assume that Libre office is the same. I never really liked the version of Word that I have (or maybe had). It's way too complicated for my needs so may switch anyway.

[kenparry]

LibreOffice is related to Open Office in that both are developments of Sun's Star Office. Open Office has been discontinued, but LibreOffice is very much alive and well.

[Bidule]

Originally Posted by kenparry

LibreOffice is related to Open Office in that both are developments of Sun's Star Office. Open Office has been discontinued, but LibreOffice is very much alive and well.

Hello,
I consider switching to LibreOffice from MS. I have a lot of VBA in Excel and Access. How is it working with LibreOffice? Is there a lot to rewrite?

[kenparry]

Wikipedia says:

VBA is also implemented, at least partially, in applications published by companies other than Microsoft, including ArcGIS, AutoCAD, CorelDraw, LibreOffice, Reflection,[2]SolidWorks,[3] and WordPerfect.

I don't use VBA, so can tell you no more.

[Mac the Knife]

"I have a lot of VBA in Excel and Access"

Compatibility of VBA and Macros used to be poor (well, awful really) in the first few years.
There is a compatibility mode that works for some simpler stuff
Conversion is not that difficult and cheaper than to getting the whole vastly expensive MS suite.

LibreOffice 6 is actually pretty bloody impressive.

Mac

[Bidule]

Originally Posted by kenparry

Wikipedia says:

Quote:
VBA is also implemented, at least partially, in applications published by companies other than Microsoft, including ArcGIS, AutoCAD, CorelDraw, LibreOffice, Reflection,[2]
SolidWorks,[3] and WordPerfect.
I don't use VBA, so can tell you no more.

Originally Posted by Mac the Knife

"I have a lot of VBA in Excel and Access"

Compatibility of VBA and Macros used to be poor (well, awful really) in the first few years.
There is a compatibility mode that works for some simpler stuff
Conversion is not that difficult and cheaper than to getting the whole vastly expensive MS suite.

LibreOffice 6 is actually pretty bloody impressive.

Mac

Ken, Mac

Thanks to both of you.
I shall do a try.

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