Microsoft office license question

Factual Questions
1

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.

2

What version did you have installed on the old drive, and what version is the upgrade software?

3

You can just call Microsoft and ask them directly. They are usually pretty flexible about such things and can tell you what you need to do. In the worst case, you can probably just buy a really old version of MS Office cheap from someone or get someone to give you one if they have old installation disks that they have already upgraded from. I haven’t tried it in a few years but the upgrade version usually isn’t picky at all about what it looks for. Even a long defunct version of Office used to be enough to satisfy it.

There are various ways to hack it to get the upgrade to work but describing how to do that isn’t allowed on this board. Simple Google searches can tell you how if you are tech savvy. It isn’t like you are actually doing anything dishonest.

4

Having the Product ID or Product Key would be most useful. Especially if it’s a newer version, you had to activate the Product online after installation and there will be records on the activation database that you are the owner of the software. From there maybe they can find a way to help you out.

Product key is most useful, but a valid Product ID will at least prove you had a legit retail or OEM copy installed - if you have any record of support using those in the database they may be able to validate from there.

I can’t guarantee they will provide you any free or discounted software but you can always ask.

5

Thanks for the replies, all.

I like the idea of using an older copy of office, but I don’t think I have any old versions lying around.

I am not sure when MS started doing everything online, but I honestly can’t recall ever purchasing a laptop without MS office pre-loaded until my newest one.

It would be great if I could find a friend with some older installation disks, especially if the upgrade disk doesn’t really care what version you have as long as you have one.

Does MS even create cd’s any longer, or are office purchases all handled on-line, where the customer just downloads the software directly from MS?

If i cannot find anything, I will contact Microsoft directly and see what they can do for me. I really don’t want to have to purchase this software again if I don’t have to, and since I have already purchased both the original software and an upgrade, maybe they will be kind to me.

6

If everything was preloaded, isn’t there a sticker with the Microsoft Product ID on the old laptop?

If you have that, you can call Microsoft with that ID and they should be able to go from there if it was registered in your name.

7

Most of the newest software is available as download only unless you are in a country where that is not a viable option. However if you look for a copy of Office 2011 you can probably still get a CD version.

8

You could try just copying an install of Office from elsewhere? Just copy C:\Program Files\Microsoft office or whatever it’s called - copy the entire directory to a USB key, copy it onto your PC in the same spot. Obviously it won’t run - missing a lot of other files and all the registry keys - but maybe the existence of the files will be enough for the upgrade to run. If there’s a convenient PC you can copy from, might work. Can’t hurt. Worst case it doesn’t, you just delete the folder.

Not sure about recently, but in the Good Old Days, MS upgrades would even accept an install disk from another older version as proof, the old version didn’t need to even be installed. For some reason, MS has become less trusting.

9

Probably easier to find someone with a key and dvd for an older version of Office.
IT departments at any business/work place will have an action pack , software houses have MSDN versions… something like that will work.

You can try with just a copy of the DVD and no key…

10

Another trick from the Good Old Days that is worth a shot.
Point the upgrade to search the CD drive it is in itself. That used to work.

11

Just an update for those interested.

I called Microsoft and explained the situation. Turns out, they do provide a copy of older office software that can be downloaded from their site for things like this.

They checked my product key, and they said it was valid, so I “should have no problems” if I followed the directions.

Once I had the proper link, i was able to get going. However, it wasn’t exactly straight-forward.

For some reason, when I tried doing the re-install and upgrade with my CD, I was given an error message saying I had already used the limit of licenses on my upgrade, which I knew wasn’t correct. They provide an automated number if you believe the error message was a mistake.

After about 5 minutes of putting in a ridiculous number of numbers and letters over the phone, and then getting more numbers and letters to put into a web page (I think it was 60 in all), and after finally getting everything validated (the hardest part was reading the damn security code they put on the screen to prove you aren’t a robot), an automated voice asked me how many times I have installed the software. I answered and it matched whatever they had in their system, and presto! The download began and the install happened automatically.

Thanks all for your suggestions and help. The biggest roadblock that started this was that the upgrade CD provided an invalid link to an MS office support page. I have no idea if the page existed at one time and had been removed/archived by MS, or it was just a bad link. The link took me to microsoft’s website, so the error message I got was microsoft-specific… But the error might have just been a generic microsoft error generated when someone puts in an invalid URL.