(Can't find the link) Download an old version of MS Word from the Microsoft website

Starlet

Please could somebody help me?

I have been told by somebody who "knows his stuff" that it is possible to legitimately download an older version of Microsoft Word from the Microsoft website (e.g. Word 2003) for free

I have had a look, but can't find it anywhere. I can only find updates to Word, but not an actual link to download the program itself.

(I am aware that other programs such as OpenOffice exist, but I have this already and dont want to use this any more. I specifically want to use Word.)

Thanks, Money Savers!

NiftyDigits

Not if you don't have the Product key.

Starlet

NiftyDigits wrote: »

Not if you don't have the Product key.

Thanks for the reply.

From what I remember him telling me, you don't need a product key to download a free version of Word.

esuhl

As far as I'm aware, there is no free version of Word.

The Word Viewer is free, however, if you just need to view (but not edit) Word documents.

Alternatively, you could use a free word processor instead of Word.

John_Gray

I'm afraid that you need to tell the person who "knows his stuff" that s/he doesn't, in this particular matter.

Microsoft is well aware that most of the functionality of Word 2013 is in Word 2003, and that 95% of the available 'features' remain unused (and possibly unknown) by the average Word user, so they would be killing their market for new versions of Office if they gave away old versions free.

You might be able to find old pre-owned versions of Office for sale on sites like Ebay, but you need to be extremely careful that these are not pirated versions or that the Product Key is not already in use.

chunter

Remarkable how many people are still using Office 2003 on a daily basis, because as John Gray says, it does all things most people want it to do.
As JG says, can't see them ever giving away a free working version.

spannerzone

The only free version that they sort of gave away was their ad supported Office Starter 2010 and that was only supposed to be bundled with new PC's but there are sites you could download it from and it did provide basic Word and excel functionality for free. It's not a legitimate free download from Microsoft though.

giraffe69

I am aware that other programs such as OpenOffice exist, but I have this already and dont want to use this any more. I specifically want to use Word.

If you want to use it then pay for it as others do.

esuhl

chunter wrote: »

Remarkable how many people are still using Office 2003 on a daily basis, because as John Gray says, it does all things most people want it to do.
As JG says, can't see them ever giving away a free working version.

Office 2003 was the best version ever. I haven't been able to look at a more recent version without wanting to throw the computer out the window.

macman

Libre Office will do the same job for nothing.