Just got the unwelcome notice that the 2019 version of Microsoft Word will no longer allow creating or editing Word docs. I suppose if one went through the entire original licensing agreement it would somewhere say the equivalent of “the program will only work as long as we choose to allow it to”, but goddamn this sucks. I absolutely do not, do not, do not want a version of Word that is not local on my computer. I suppose manually resetting the date on my computer perpetually won’t work?
P.S. Irony time:Your topic is similar to…
“How does Microsoft get people to upgrade Office (or anything for that matter)?”
That’s astonishing to me. It actually seems like it should be illegal for software you purchased. I could maybe see them stopping you from opening or editing some new file format, but to prohibit you from opening, editing, or creating an existing file format seems beyond the pale.
Especially editing your own existing files.
When you purchased the software in 2019, were you informed that it had an expiration date? Because I sure wasnt.
If you already have it installed, you can block it’s network access. Office 2019 is not built on the Office 365 platform and does not require internet access to function. You can obviously never update it but that sounds like a feature for you, not a bug. How I’d do it:
Press Win + R, type wf.msc, and press Enter.
Select Outbound Rules → New Rule → Program.
Browse to WINWORD.EXE, choose Block the connection, select all network profiles, and name the rule “Block Word internet.” or something to that effect.
Open Word, go to File → Account → Account Privacy → Manage Settings and turn off any connected experiences available there. If that menu is absent, check File → Options → Trust Center → Trust Center Settings → Privacy Options.
Note - You should be saving documents to a local folder and not OneDrive. Blocking WINWORD.EXE alone does not stop the separate OneDrive app from syncing a document.
Can anybody assure, with a solid cite, that what the OP states really is official policy by Microsoft? Because if true, it would have made big waves in IT circles, and since I’m an IT guy who watches those circles, I have heard nothing of it. Imagine what this would mean to the corporate world! There are probably hundreds of millions of machines that still run that software.
Hmm. Well it just needs the path the the executable file. You can right-click on the Word icon on your desktop, select properties, and click the Shortcut tab. There should be a line called target that gives you the path to whatever the executable file is for Word on your machine. You can copy that path and enter it in step 3.
Does this block just internet access or does it block all network access, including the local network? Would it block the ability to print to a network printer?
Okay, found the right path, followed instructions. Word now says that I am unregistered and it’s still giving me a “yellow stripe at the top of the page” warning that features will stop working on the 29.
I don’t think disabling internet access or playing with the system date will do much more than buy you a few weeks or a month.
The trigger to enter reduced functionality mode uses the internal date plus periodic license checks. If it passes the date and can’t run a license check, it will work for a grace period before triggering anyway.
Changing the date might work for a little while, but it will eventually reset or detect date tampering.
If you need full compatibility with people running the MS suite, it doesn’t really work, unless the files are very simple. If you just need to open and edit your own files for your own use, Open Office almost always works fine.
(Someone who has purchased several licenses for MS office, has open office on every laptop [i own 3 that i use commonly] and is also a heavy user of Google’s sheets and forms.)
If you are using Office for your job, then your company should upgrade the license for you. If you are using it for personal use, you might be able to switch to something else. There are some pretty good non-MS alternatives out there. One is an open source project called Open Office. It’s like Office and runs on your computer. It’s open source, which means it’s volunteer created. But it’s pretty good for basic stuff. There’s also Google Drive. It has similar Office tools, but it stores files in the cloud rather than on your PC. If you want an older version of Office, there are lots for sale on ebay.