Licensing for MS Office XP

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hms46 · #1 Post by **hms46** » Mon Jan 30, 2006 12:44 pm

I would like to install Office XP (2002) on an R52 that I recently purchased. Has anyone been able to obtain a waiver of Microsoft's licensing for running the same copy of that version of Office simultaneously on ones desktop and notebook?

I have the original (and unused) Office XP disks that came with the Dell desktop. Office was already installed on the Dell so I never had to go through the activation process for reasons unknown to me. The details tab for the programs (Word, Excel, Access) still show activation pending even though I have been using them for 3 years.

The alternatives are Office 2003 Student/Teacher which has license for several pc's or possibly OpenOffice. Also, I probably could revert to Office 2000 which I do not think had the activation requirement.

Many thanks.

roberts5 · #2 Post by **roberts5** » Tue Jan 31, 2006 4:47 pm

Probaby shouldn't post this, but whatever. Look for a program called

"Anti Product Activation Patch 1.3 for Office 2003 & XP"

there is a readme file and the actual program file: Anti-MSOPA.exe

Just a quick google search found them both here:

http://burdell.org/~pitr26/

#3 Post by **jdhurst** » Tue Jan 31, 2006 8:49 pm

Office XP Pro and Office 2003 Pro allow two copies and to be used at the same time. ... JD Hurst

BruisedQuasar · #4 Post by **BruisedQuasar** » Sat Feb 11, 2006 3:16 pm

You just download the OpenSource program OpenOffice and forget about MS Office altogether. I have set up a few friend's small businesses with OpenOffice, an entirely free program that allows you to load it on as many PCs as you wish and you can get access to the code and hack it to your heart's desire. As far as my friends are concerned MS Office can't do anything, OpenOffice cannot do. The program saved my CPA friend thousands of dollars in licensing fees.

DIGITALgimpus · #5 Post by **DIGITALgimpus** » Sat Feb 11, 2006 3:53 pm

For most people openoffice is more than enough.

Unless you interact with vb scripting, and macro's quite a bit, or some other obscure things.

hms46 · #6 Post by **hms46** » Sat Feb 11, 2006 5:43 pm

Thanks to all for your replies.

I did not realize that one could run Office XP (2002) on 2 pc's; I will look more carefully into the licensing although I did read it before my first post. Maybe MS grudgingly accepts the fact that it happens.

I plan to download OpenOffice soon. I do not use advanced features of Word or Excel, so it should suffice.

I realize that the software producers have to add features to justify selling new versions of a product, but I do not need all the new features and am tired of software bloat. I used to be able to produce mailing labels in Word from an Excel spreadsheet easily in Word 95 & 97. Word 2002 came up with wizards to make it easy! Took me an hour to figure out what to do the first time.

Henry

DataAve · #7 Post by **DataAve** » Sat Feb 11, 2006 6:21 pm

Do the files between OpenOffice and Billy translate?

christopher_wolf · #8 Post by **christopher_wolf** » Sat Feb 11, 2006 6:28 pm

Yup; I have both on my system and haven't yet had a compatibility issue. The might be some for Powerpoint, but that is only if you don't have the latest version of OpenOffice. The Writer is actually very MS Word like, I was able to pop it up and instantly start typing away and drawing figures.

icantux · #9 Post by **icantux** » Sat Feb 11, 2006 8:19 pm

perhaps the best part of Open Office (OO) is that it has native support for creating PDF files!

hms46 · #10 Post by **hms46** » Sat Feb 11, 2006 11:38 pm

Those of you who are using OpenOffice, did you download the plain Windows verison or the Windows JRE (Java) version?

I could not find much help on which to use in OpenOffice's forum FAQs. I personally do not use Java, but do not know which version to install. I downloaded both of them but do not know which to install. I would like to try OpenOffice but do not want to install the wrong version and then reinstall another.

Thanks for any advice that you can give on this.

After researching MS help, I think that I resolved the issue on licensing. At least for Office 2003, one can install it on your desktop and notebook IF you have the retail version; this may be true of retail Office XP as well. Mine is an OEM version of Office XP (2002), which would violate the licensing agreement, even if you paid the vendor (Dell in my case) for it.

Henry

pianowizard · #11 Post by **pianowizard** » Sat Feb 11, 2006 11:48 pm

icantux wrote:perhaps the best part of Open Office (OO) is that it has native support for creating PDF files!

Yes, I discovered that just two days ago! I too think that's the nicest thing about OpenOffice.

christopher_wolf · #12 Post by **christopher_wolf** » Sat Feb 11, 2006 11:59 pm

hms46 wrote:Those of you who are using OpenOffice, did you download the plain Windows verison or the Windows JRE (Java) version?

I could not find much help on which to use in OpenOffice's forum FAQs. I personally do not use Java, but do not know which version to install. I downloaded both of them but do not know which to install. I would like to try OpenOffice but do not want to install the wrong version and then reinstall another.

Thanks for any advice that you can give on this.

After researching MS help, I think that I resolved the issue on licensing. At least for Office 2003, one can install it on your desktop and notebook IF you have the retail version; this may be true of retail Office XP as well. Mine is an OEM version of Office XP (2002), which would violate the licensing agreement, even if you paid the vendor (Dell in my case) for it.

Henry

Correct me if I am wrong, but I think that bundles the JRE (Java Runtime Engine) with it in the event that you do not have the JRE already installed on your Thinkpad; almost all of the Thinkpads I have seen come with the JRE installed by IBM/Lenovo. In either case, it still uses Java.

BruisedQuasar · #13 Post by **BruisedQuasar** » Sat Feb 18, 2006 6:38 pm

hms46 wrote:I plan to download OpenOffice soon. I do not use advanced features of Word or Excel, so it should suffice. I realize that the software producers have to add features to justify selling new versions of a product, but I do not need all the new features and am tired of software bloat. Henry

OpenOffice is a powerful productivity program. The few things it cannot do that MS Office can are in the esoteric category. As with Firefox and other major OpenSource free of cost & free to alter programs, you can install add-on functions if you need one, or program a function that does not exist. This reduces bloat & allows a world wide community of talented users to hack out additional functions for those who want them and will use them.

An excellent firm authored and owns OpenOffice, Sun Microsystems.
--Bruised

christopher_wolf · #14 Post by **christopher_wolf** » Sat Feb 18, 2006 7:13 pm

OpenOffice is pretty good; although I am not sure how much bloat reduction has occured for it over time. Open source doesn't always guarantee the best implementation or the least amount of bloat (I have seen OSS with tons of bloat)

#15 Post by **bill bolton** » Sat Feb 18, 2006 7:50 pm

BruisedQuasar wrote:The few things it cannot do that MS Office can are in the esoteric category.

In my real world here, which involves significant amounts of consulting in the field, they are capability differences which make the transfer of fairly ordinary (i.e. not estoteric) Office documents between MS Office 2003 and OpenOffice so problematic that OpenOffice is just not viable commercially.

The cost of licences is a fraction of the cost of consulting time sorting out why something that should be straightforward doesn't work!

Licensing for MS Office XP

Licensing for MS Office XP

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