I have an office upgrade disk which I purchased a few years ago. It was to upgrade the old version of office that I had on my old laptop.
My old laptop died. I was told it was the motherboard, and to replace it would cost as much as a new laptop would cost (more or less).
So I went with the new laptop. The tech guys can see the hard-drive, and saved most of my data. However, they didn’t save the MS office software… To be fair, I didn’t think to ask them to do this at the time. I was just relieved to get my data back.
I do not have the original disks. I am not sure I ever had them, and to be honest, I doubt that I ever did, since I save every software CD that I purchase.
If my memory is correct, I bought my old laptop with MS office pre-loaded on the hard drive, and never had the disks.
However, I now cannot load office onto my new laptop, because the upgrade CD searches my machine for an older, legal version of office before loading the upgrade.
My question is this. What would I need to pull from the hard drive of my dead laptop that would prove to MS that I had a legal copy of their software in the first place, and that I should be permitted to install the upgraded version that I also legally purchased? I have the security key for the upgrade, so if I had permission, I could load the software easily.
I suppose all of the software is on the hard drive, but I am almost positive that it would be virtually impossible to pull all of the files required to put office on my new laptop and have it run properly. The install changes the registry (among other things) and I really don’t want to have to look at the registry or anything at that level.
I have a very bad feeling that I am going to have to buy Office again, and I don’t want to do that if I don’t have to.