I beg to differ. If you own a legal copy of a program and you are just trying to activate and use what you paid for and are legally entitled to use, entering a key from another source will allow you to do that. You paid for it, you get to use it. You tried to activate it the proper way, and it didn’t work. The manufacturer is depriving you of what you rightfully own by this tortured logic. Using another key is a way of getting around the insane provisions imposed by manufacturers who hope you will lose the key they try so hard to keep separate from the disk so you will buy more shit from them.
There, I feel much better.
Most modern word processors can read and write standard Word files.
Of course the disks are not unique. They’re stamped from the same mold by the thousands, maybe millions. You didn’t think the manufacturer burns them one at a time, did you?
I’m gonna play devil’s advocate and ask what exactly you are worried about getting messed up when writing out a manuscript in OpenOffice. I’ve submitted manuscripts to a number of publications using OO with no problems. I don’t know what field you are in, but IME most editors usually don’t want any kind of fancy formatting at all, at least for text submissions. If you can write up your work, save as .doc and send it to a few friends or colleagues with Word to test it, I don’t see what could possibly be messed up.
Thank you. One kind soul sent me some codes. I tried, but none of them worked. I’m certainly not going to throw out this CD. Maybe some day I’ll find that old COA, or some alternate method. Even if I no longer have a need for it then, I’m sure I’ll find someone who will be glad to have it - may even sell it; who knows? There are people still selling Office 95.
I do wish I were still working at a university. It was so convenient to be eligible for academic versions!
Good. So do I. I can’t help but admire what Gates is doing with his time/our money these days, but I still have a very negative opinion of MS. I’ve started to feel a bit ambivalent these days about Google, but I admire their “Don’t be evil” motto. I know some compromises are necessary to work with China, but it doesn’t make me feel any better about either theirs or Yahoo’s cooperation with them WRT dissidents or site blocking.
Well, they say “unique product code” OWTTE on the stuff. I mean, when you think rationally about it, they can’t possibly have a literally unique code for each and every one of the hundreds of thousands of copies they make, but they must switch codes periodically, and may have some process whereby they randomize how many copies with any one set of codes go to which shipping destinations. If they didn’t switch the codes every so often, everybody would have the same one - and I wouldn’t have had this problem. :sigh:
Well, it’s because I’ve seen reviews where disgruntled OO users said they’d had Word users complain they couldn’t read OO formatted docs, and others agreed that there were sometimes discrepancies in how the formatting turned out. I just don’t want to have to worry about it. It’s worth it to me to use the @#$%^ MS product just so I don’t hafta wonder whether it’s going to appear to the recipient the way I want it to. Okay?
No it is not OK. In GQ we ask for facts and try to fight ignorance. You absolutely can write a simple document in OO save it in .doc format and it will work just fine. I do it all the time and so do millions of other users. What you have “heard” is not data. It is not even an anecdote.
You have apparently ruled against it and that is fine for you to do, but in GQ you criticize using supporting facts.
The product code used to activate your mass-produced, identical disk to millions of others is unique. Once installed, it is branded to you. However, the same disk will install with millions of other codes as long as they are structured according to some formula (which is known by many hackers but MS pretends is a secret).
At one time – antique, obsolete rumor follows – as long as the code began with a “6”, it was accepted. Nowadays, codes are a little more complex and they might be sent back to MS for verification, but the concept is the same. Generic disk, specific code. When you register the program online, MS knows (takes your word for it) who you are because you told them ( :rolleyes: ). Supposedly, if you re-use a code, they will detect it and send three squads of Men In Black to lock you up in Wee Willie Gates’ Dungeon, waiting in vain for Lawrence Lessig to spring you.
Unless I misunderstand (something that happens all the time), the bolded section is the problem. If you save a document in OO format, Word will definitely choke on it. The trick, as Stan Doubt notes, is to save it in Word format; you can use Tools / Options / Load/Save (in OO 2.0, at least) to make that the default save format.
Have you tried contacting Microsoft? (I know this sounds very basic but it who knows.). About 12 months back a computer store installed a copy of XP on my computer and they didn’t have a key to activate it. My own legitimate key wouldn’t work so I rang Microsoft and they gave me a generic key. Maybe they would do the same for you <shrugs>- would they get bothered about a copy of Word 8 years old?
(Failing that I would find a friend who has bought a copy of Office- you can install it on 3 computers).
Although I agree with your logic and sentiment, (and IANAL, but I’m nearly 100% positive) any circumvention, including entering a knowingly incorrect key, of a manufacturer’s DRM is illegal (according to the DMCA). Simple legal ownership of the material does not entitle you to use the program in any manner you would like. Just ask Jon Johansen.
I’d love to hear from an actual lawyer about this. I’m also curious as to why a mod has not weighed in on this thread to encourage people from not treading into potentially illegal waters, considering how the powers that be typically look dimly upon discussions that involve grey areas like this.
They only specifically look at threads where people **hit the report ** this post button. Otherwise, it would take a random mod being interested enough in this subject to read this thread.
The do not read or review every thread.
Spezza, IANAL, just an IT guy. Knowingly entering the wrong key from a program you own legally is unlikely to trigger a legal problem. You are extending the most draconian of software law interpretation about a Word 2000 CD. We are meticulous at work at matching up PCs & keys as companies are the usual target. Microsoft would be doing itself no good in trying to prosecute a single user for an 8 year old product. Especially as the user is on SS disability.
I’m not talking a “simple” document. I’m talking a footnoted, indexed and chaptered manuscript. The complaint I read was only a few days ago, in which a person said he’d submitted a resume to his own company’s HR dept, and had a response asking, “What is this trash?” If a simple resume didn’t translate properly, how in heck will a more complex doc work right? If it mattered enough to me, I’d try to find it again, just to show you, but you’re obviously not going to be persuaded; my word on what I read is clearly insufficient for you.
It’s possible that a complaint you’ve read was actually a question in disguise. That is, why didn’t the resume save/open as expected? One plausible answer surely is incompatibility, but issues such as save parameters, initial setup, the recipient’s machine, etc., are also possibilities.
I don’t have an answer to that. I do know that’s not the only such complaint I’ve seen; it’s merely the most recent, and one which stuck most vividly in my memory.
I’m aware that sometimes issues of compatibility between different kinds of software are at least in part dependent upon the skill/knowledge of the users. I do know that much greater attention has been paid in recent years to usability issues than was once the case. At the same time, programs have become ever more complex, as features have been added. Further, Open Office is freeware. Some of the best software available today is freeware; I’m quite aware of that. At the same time, some of the worst software is also free - but how good or bad a given program is for one’s intended use is very often an extremely subjective matter. It’s the old YMMV issue. Going with the industry standard is the safest, in my judgement.
It’s been a decade since I’ve used any complex WP program. I don’t think I’ve lost my capacity for thinking abstractly or framing my thoughts, but I don’t have the same confidence in my ability to master any complex program that thoroughly anymore, to be sure that I’ve both formatted my work properly in one program (OO, as Stan Doubt believes I should use) and exported it in such a fashion that none of the formatting - or the content - will be unaltered, much less garbled, as the complaint I cited claimed, in the recipient program (MS Word). If I were absolutely confident of my ability to manage both the formatting and the export from one platform to another, I’d have bought the Word Perfect Office. Legal copies of it can be had very cheaply, after all. And I suspect that the way it works has some similarities to the ancestral programs I used to use.
I would like to thank all of the people who have contacted me privately to try to help me. Among the Dopers are many of the kindest and most generous folks around.
I decided to wait until things were completely resolved to respond. I received many messages with product keys in them. Unfortunately, none of them worked for me.
I also received two offers of software. The first offer was of an academic package for which, as mentioned above, I no longer qualify. Regretfully, I declined. The other offer was for regular, non-academic software, from a very generous soul who shall be nameless to prevent the possibility that they be importuned. Each of us has the right to choose whom we aid, and in what way - and not to be harassed by others (as we’ve all experienced when some organization to which we’ve donated sells their mailing list). I’m not saying it would happen, just that I choose not to take the chance. I accepted, and received the software in Monday’s mail.
I wish to again thank all of those who tried their best to help me. Dopers are a great bunch. I’ve seen it time and again how people here reach out to help others. This time I was the recipient, and I am most grateful. Thanks, everybody.
Going with the industry standard is the safest, in my judgement.