microsoft office activation wizard ?

pennymakespounds

purchased hp 255 laptop a few months ago (possibly refurb), from good ebay seller .. ... had windows 7 and "microsoft office professional plus 2010 " installed

All fine till couple of weeks ago .. everytime i open a spreadsheet i get a box "activation wizard .... this copy of microsoft office is not activated . You have 15..... ( and reducing every day) days to activate .
Ensure you are connected to your corporate network to enable auto activation "

nb .. it's a laptop at home..not on a network .

The box then has a " change product key" and a "close" box .

I don't have any packaging or anything with "product key" on .

What is the problem .. and how do i solve it ?... within 15 days !!!

thanks

NiftyDigits

It's a 60 day trial. That's normal. Did the listing suggest that it was sold with a full licence?
Post a link to the sale item.

gjchester

pennymakespounds wrote: »

purchased hp 255 laptop a few months ago (possibly refurb), from good ebay seller .. ... had windows 7 and "microsoft office professional plus 2010 " installed

All fine till couple of weeks ago .. everytime i open a spreadsheet i get a box "activation wizard .... this copy of microsoft office is not activated . You have 15..... ( and reducing every day) days to activate .
Ensure you are connected to your corporate network to enable auto activation "

nb .. it's a laptop at home..not on a network .

The box then has a " change product key" and a "close" box .

I don't have any packaging or anything with "product key" on .

What is the problem .. and how do i solve it ?... within 15 days !!!

thanks

Go back to the seller, it sounds like its not a legitimate office install, if they are unwilling to help you would need to buy a copy of Office, or install Open Office.

It sounds like the seller installed a volume copy of Office 2010, Professional Plus is not usually available to the general public to buy as a product, although may have been bought through a volume agreement (say a school, uni or workplace). The version of office you have has to check in ( I think every 60 days for 2010) to the corporate license key server to remain active. in your case it can't (as you don't have access to that server or one of your own) so office will go into reduced functionality mode in 15 days.

Someone may offer you a hack to fix it, that's one way, but if you paid the seller for Office and they have not supplied it with a genuine copy you need to get back to them, and if they won't help take it up with Ebay and/or Microsoft.

gjchester

NiftyDigits wrote: »

It's a 60 day trial. That's normal. Did the listing suggest that it was sold with a full licence?
Post a link to the sale item.

Didn't think of that as the OP mentioned ProPlus, and that's not what you normally get on a trial version. Could also be the seller using a MSDN or Technet sub version and leaving them unactivated.

NiftyDigits

gjchester wrote: »

Go back to the seller, it sounds like its not a legitimate office install, if they are unwilling to help you would need to buy a copy of Office, or install Open Office.

It sounds like the seller installed a volume copy of Office 2010, Professional Plus is not usually available to the general public to buy as a product, although may have been bought through a volume agreement (say a school, uni or workplace). The version of office you have has to check in ( I think every 60 days for 2010) to the corporate license key server to remain active. in your case it can't (as you don't have access to that server or one of your own) so office will go into reduced functionality mode in 15 days.

Someone may offer you a hack to fix it, that's one way, but if you paid the seller for Office and they have not supplied it with a genuine copy you need to get back to them, and if they won't help take it up with Ebay and/or Microsoft.

You are right. Retail was available only via MSDN or TechNet.

pennymakespounds

if i end up needing / wanting to buy a new Office package .. what's the best / cheapest option ? .. are they all the one year subscription thing now ?
.. last time i purchased was a home & student forever version for about £40 in currys !!

It's just to go on my one laptop at home . I only do Word docs & excel spreadsheets .

thanks

molerat

Has it not got Office Starter 2010 on it ? It is a cut down basic version but still works.

cakeforbrains

You could look into Open Office or Google Docs.

pennymakespounds

Molerat ... no it hasn't .

gjchester

pennymakespounds wrote: »

if i end up needing / wanting to buy a new Office package .. what's the best / cheapest option ? .. are they all the one year subscription thing now ?
.. last time i purchased was a home & student forever version for about £40 in currys !!

It's just to go on my one laptop at home . I only do Word docs & excel spreadsheets .

thanks

Try Apache Office - https://www.openoffice.org/


Its Free and if it does what you need will be fine.


Office starts at about £100 depending on what you need, for word and excel the home version is fine, and you can buy either a traditional pay once licence or a cheaper subscription depending on how many PCs you want to use it on and if you want any of the online features.


Post hitting save, if you still hav ethe old office (probably 2007 I guess) that should work on the new laptop if you have the disk and code.

smudger1964

Another free one you could try is https://www.libreoffice.org/