Microsoft Office advice/Antivirus

chocolatepennyfarthing

Have just purchased a laptop for my son who is in upper 6th form at school and want to get office installed on it as cheaply as possible.
As he does not have a school/uni email address is it best to purchase Office Personal for 12 months then when he starts Uni is it possible to change to Office 365 University that will cover him for the next 4 years?
Have looked but not sure if there are any better ways to go forward with this?
Can you also advise the best free Antivirus software we should get installed on it. Thanks

System

That seems a sensible way to go about it.

The antivirus/antimalware that is built into Windows 10 is as good as any of the free stuff so no need to worry about that.
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(Now waits for the Libreoffice fanclub to appear and claim erroneously that Libreoffice can do all that MS Office can do)

grumpycrab

Office 2010 starter (free) with Word and Excel https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qN1116j96W4
BUT surely its easiest to get an educational license...

AVAST free is good.

chocolatepennyfarthing

Laptop has Windows 8. Waiting for it to be delivered today. Is there a free upgrade available to Windows 10 or is that something that we would need to buy additionally? Have heard a bit of negativity about Windows 10, is it worth upgrading, what are the main differences and benefits please?

System

TBH I prefer Win10 over Win 8/8.1. Wouldn't touch Windows 8 with a bargepole but am happy using 10. 10 is what 8 should have been.

chocolatepennyfarthing

How can we get an educational license? He does not have a school or Uni email address I thought you needed one of these to be able to go that route?

System

grumpycrab wrote: »

Office 2010 starter (free) with Word and Excel https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qN1116j96W4
BUT surely its easiest to get an educational license...

I don't see the point at the moment. You can get a valid/legal personal licence off ebay for around £30 for 1 year and as the OP says, his son will be able to get it free from the Uni once he starts there..

grumpycrab wrote: »

AVAST free is good.

If the laptop has Win 10 then not needed

grumpycrab

chocolatepennyfarthing wrote: »

Laptop has Windows 8. Waiting for it to be delivered today. Is there a free upgrade available to Windows 10 or is that something that we would need to buy additionally?

Its free. 2 options. 1. Stick with 8 and install Classic shell; 2. upgrade to 10 straight away. If you've got a few spare hours (should be quicker but you know what computers are like;)...
1. if the laptop is connected to the internet it may offer the upgrade immediately (but has to download 3GB so time will depend on how good your connection is).
2. or do the upgrade in slow time; a. backup the existing Windows 8 installation to DVDs or external USB device (a belt and braces approach as the laptop should have a recovery partition already).
b. download windows 10 - see my sig.
c. get latest cumulative updates at (needs IE)
http://catalog.update.microsoft.com/v7/site/Search.aspx?q=KB3097617

grumpycrab

grumpycrab wrote: »

AVAST free is good.

!!!!!! wrote: »

If the laptop has Win 10 then not needed

But is recommended compared to Windows Defender.

macman

Libre Office can't do all the Office can do-but it can do about 95% of it. Which for most users will be perfectly adequate.

System

Just checked some sites and the consensus I find is that Defender will do the job as well as the common free ones Avast & AVG.

Quite a few sites are still using the older Win7/8 version as the comparison app and not the current version.