Unable to install legitimate copy of MS Office

[russell.murphy]

Approx 4 years I bought a computer with a pre-installed version of Works 4. I bought MS Office 97 Professional Upgrade (Works being a legitimate program to upgrade from).

I have just had to buy a new computer which had Word 2000 pre-installed. This is not a legitimate program to install Office 97.

I phone MS Technical support for information of which files I need to copy from my old computer. I was told that the licence for Works 4 only allows me to have it on my old computer and I would have to buy an newer version of Office (costs about

[iancom]

I Feel Your Pain. Of course you resent paying more money. You've legitimately bought their software and produced your own data from it, in good faith.

Now, you've changed your computer and they've changed their rules.

They will continue to do that.

Don't give them any more of a chance to screw you!

Sun's StarOffice will read any (with only a few very exceptional exceptions [I like redundancy]) MS Office '97 files and can even write out into those  formats so you can just as easily share files with your colleagues and friends.

Best thing is that they cannot turn round and suddenly demand more money from you because they have released the majority of their code into the open source community.

If you've got a broadband connection, have a go at http://www.sun.com/products/staroffice/5.2/download.html

If not, and you've no other way of getting it, drop me a private message, and I can send you a CD. Strictly a one-time offer, Sun's conditions of license apply, nobody other than the original requestant need apply ...

[voidmain]

Don't use 5.2, 6.0 is MUCH better.  And it's now fully into the open source as a different version numbering scheme.  That's at http://www.openoffice.org.  There is a Windows version and a *NIX version.

P.S. I guess it's not *fully* open source yet but close to it. Sun includes a couple of third party items in StartOffice 6 that isn't in OpenOffice (there is a list of differences (not many) on the OpenOffice web site).

[ February 15, 2002: Message edited by: VoidMain ]

[iancom]

I use 6.0, but it's still beta.

I absolutely agree that it's better. What were they thinking of with that all-in-one interface?

However, I believe I would be remiss in recommending a beta-level product to a relatively inexperienced end-user who is looking for a business-quality product to replace MS Office?

My experiences with office suites are, however, atypical, since I...
 
(a) don't care about any data untrusted to anything other than vi
(b) frankly just don't care.

oh well...

[Calum]

Also, try this free alternative to M$ office 2002 which i find to be very useful, and it's free to the home user.

[ February 18, 2002: Message edited by: Calum ]

[voidmain]

quote:Originally posted by Calum:
Also, try this free alternative to M$ office 2002[url] which i find to be very useful, and it's free to the home user.

Uh, looks like there is only a Windows version of that. OpenOffice/StarOffice works equally well on both Linux and Windows.

[Calum]

That is true, but if Russell wants to run M$ Works/Office, then he wants to run it on Windows. Therefore this free package is perfect. It doesn't do all that hidden crap like installing findfast et c either, like Office does. I haven't tried staroffice for more than about 10 minutes so i can't comment. it seems people here like it though so that's pretty good.
One thing though Russell, if you originally bought a computer with M$ works installed, didn't it come with an M$Works installer CD or floppies? It should have, so if so, use those disks to install Works on yr new computer, and use yr Office upgrade disk, which you bought, to turn it into M$ Office.
You are heading for trouble trying to copy the files across though, since there's thousands of registry entries that need to be correct for office to work (so i hear)

[voidmain]

My point was that OpenOffice also runs on Windows and could be another option for him. I didn't mean he had to run it on Linux and in fact OpenOffice runs very well on Windows (better than MS Office?). But if he ever did want to run it on Linux he could.  And you got source code if you want it...

The one you mention only has a crippled version that is free.

Open Office can be downloaded at http://www.openoffice.org and it is not cripped, you couldn't pay anyone for it if you wanted to (well, you could pay me).

[ February 18, 2002: Message edited by: VoidMain ]

[Calum]

Well, rather than being crippled, it's kind of like they hold back half the office suite till you pay for it. You get word and excel and picture viewer type aps, but you need to pay to get a lot of plugins and an access type thing. It's only $30 though compared with M$'s $250, and you don't even need to pay it if you only want word and excel.
You are right though, why pay anything at all when there's a free alternative? I just hadn't really heard of Openoffice much. From what i have heard, it takes up a lot less disk space than 602Office, something like eight times less! Maybe i'll have to look it up...

[Gonusto]

Okay,  I downloaded and installed OpenOffice.org last night and it appears to be able to read and write the various file formats that I need.  But before I take Word '97 off of my computer, I wanted to check here to see if there were any reasons that I would need to keep it installed. I don't know where the install CD went should I need it back for one reason or another.  Can anybody think of anything or am I good to go?


-Gonusto

[voidmain]

I thought the whole point of looking for an alternative was because you couldn't install Office97 because you didn't have an appropriate upgrade candidate? Am I missing something?  If you aren't cramped for space why remove it?  I would keep it as a backup in case you find something you can't do with OpenOffice, at least until you are fully comfortable with it.

[Gonusto]

VoidMan, I wasn't the one who started this thread.  I just happened to be following it and decided try out OpenOffice.org since it was so highly reccomended.  And (big surprise) I liked it better than the Microsoft alternative and was simply wondering if there was a reason I should have Word around.  But you're right, since I'm not pressed for disk space, I might as well keep it.


-Gonusto

[ February 19, 2002: Message edited by: Gonusto ]

[voidmain]

Oh, duh!  Sorry about that.  

[Gonusto]

It's all good.


-Gonusto

[russell.murphy]

I seem to have started quite an interesting topic.

To re-cap my situation. The version or Works on my old computer can only be installed by restoring the hard-drive to the state it was when I bought the computer. I have looked on the installation disk and cannot see where Works resides. At the time of purchase, this was a legitimate upgrade for Office 97.

That computer has become unstable - had numerous problems installing software and had to restore again. All it has on it now is the stuff it came with (including Works) and MS Office 97.

I would like to be able to put MS Office on my new computer but that has Works 6 and Word 2000, neither of which are recognized by MS Office 97.

Is there one (or more) files the installation is looking for and can it/they be copied across?