Microsoft Office 365

Neil_Jones

Molehusband said:

moneysavvy35 said:

Hello 

I am looking to download Office 365 very soon. I am looking around for any offers.  I have seen a site online where you can get it for £7.99 for the year via Product Keys UK, seems to be ok, just wondered if anyone has used this before? and if you advise to stay away, do you know of any other moneysaving ways to get this product?

Thank you

For many years I used Microsoft Office, purchasing new versions as they came out with a one-off upfront cost. Then, after MS introduced 365, my previously purchased products gradually stopped working. As I'm not a fan of the new MS Office charging structure I've switched to LibreOffice and now use that instead.

Something's wrong somewhere then because if you bought the off-one cost version it doesn't stop working when a new version comes out.  You've paid for Office 2013 for example at one off price and its effectively your licence for life (subject to developments/changes in operating systems and other functionality)  but like all software it will drop out of support status at some point but that's usually best part of seven or eight years down the line, and there will come a point where it doesn't work or even install on some version/build of Windows years down the line but that's normal for software.

Office 97 still works on Windows 10.

Molehusband

Neil_Jones said:

Molehusband said:

moneysavvy35 said:

Hello 

I am looking to download Office 365 very soon. I am looking around for any offers.  I have seen a site online where you can get it for £7.99 for the year via Product Keys UK, seems to be ok, just wondered if anyone has used this before? and if you advise to stay away, do you know of any other moneysaving ways to get this product?

Thank you

For many years I used Microsoft Office, purchasing new versions as they came out with a one-off upfront cost. Then, after MS introduced 365, my previously purchased products gradually stopped working. As I'm not a fan of the new MS Office charging structure I've switched to LibreOffice and now use that instead.

Something's wrong somewhere then because if you bought the off-one cost version it doesn't stop working when a new version comes out.  You've paid for Office 2013 for example at one off price and its effectively your licence for life (subject to developments/changes in operating systems and other functionality)  but like all software it will drop out of support status at some point but that's usually best part of seven or eight years down the line, and there will come a point where it doesn't work or even install on some version/build of Windows years down the line but that's normal for software.

Office 97 still works on Windows 10.

Thanks, but I suspect a clue lies in your statement "subject to developments/changes in operating systems and other functionality". I started using computers years ago and my PC journey commenced with an operating system called DR-DOS which developed into MS-DOS. After some years I migrated to MS Windows and travelled through every single version of Windows up to Windows 11 today. My MS Office purchases over the years gradually deteriorated in functionality or stopped working altogether. Hence I now use LibreOffice which keeps abreast with new Windows versions and features.

unforeseen

 DR-DOS which developed into MS-DOS

DR-DOS & MS-DOS were 2 separate OS's. Up until MS-DOS 6, DR-DOS led the improvements to DOS with MS playing catchup. 

DR-DOS became Novell DOS when Novell bought Digital Research in the early 90s. They stopped all development when MS Chicago (later to become Win 95) appeared.
Novell DOS did have a short life after as Caldera Open-DOS, but the advent of Windows 95 effectively killed off the need for DOS as a separate OS. 

Molehusband

unforeseen said:

 DR-DOS which developed into MS-DOS

DR-DOS & MS-DOS were 2 separate OS's. Up until MS-DOS 6, DR-DOS led the improvements to DOS with MS playing catchup. 

DR-DOS became Novell DOS when Novell bought Digital Research in the early 90s. They stopped all development when MS Chicago (later to become Win 95) appeared.
Novell DOS did have a short life after as Caldera Open-DOS, but the advent of Windows 95 effectively killed off the need for DOS as a separate OS. 

Well it was a complicated situation. At the time that PCs first started to be produced for consumers I was working for a major manufacturer of mainframe computers who now hopped into preparing to market PC's. So I was probably one of the first people to use a PC in this country. My company started by using Digital Research CP/M (before DR-DOS) which was regarded as the best OS for PCs at that time. When IBM entered the PC market they also wanted to use CP/M for their new PC products. Unfortunately the day they turned up at DR to sign a CP/M deal there was confusion. So IBM left and subsequently went to Microsoft assuming MS had the rights to CP/M, but were misinformed.

Similarly I subsequently started to use the DR product GEM an early general windows-like operating system, but IBMs dominance of the market then chose Microsoft's Windows instead. See:

https://www.osnews.com/story/1187/digital-research-and-the-gem-os-the-other-windows/

bondieboy

Do not do Wowcher! Have a look at their Wowcher reviews.

zouzouni

I'm not sure if there is a better thread for this, but it is Microsoft 365 related. Last month I purchase an annual subs to the single-use subscription for Microsoft 365 at £59.99. Then my husband changed jobs and no longer has access to his work 365, so we decided to upgrade to the Family subscription. By definition, an upgrade is about adding something to an existing product. However I paid the full annual subscription for Family 365 £79.99. Microsoft have told me that it is a different product and I cannot get a refund on the Personal subscription and that I should have checked their T&Cs. Has anybody else come across this issue? It seems very sneaky to encourage people to upgrade to a product, but charge the full amount.

Neil_Jones

zouzouni said:

I'm not sure if there is a better thread for this, but it is Microsoft 365 related. Last month I purchase an annual subs to the single-use subscription for Microsoft 365 at £59.99. Then my husband changed jobs and no longer has access to his work 365, so we decided to upgrade to the Family subscription. By definition, an upgrade is about adding something to an existing product. However I paid the full annual subscription for Family 365 £79.99. Microsoft have told me that it is a different product and I cannot get a refund on the Personal subscription and that I should have checked their T&Cs. Has anybody else come across this issue? It seems very sneaky to encourage people to upgrade to a product, but charge the full amount.

Sorry, I'm confused.  Your husband changed jobs, and lost access to work email (which is not uncommon and is expected) so you decided to upgrade.  Why?

The upgrade route is documented here: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/switch-to-microsoft-365-family-or-microsoft-365-personal-3fcc1efc-2722-427f-8efa-db94b9b0a36b - it sounds like you set up a new account with a new email address because if you do the upgrade correctly you get the remaining days on top of the new 12 months on the original account.

The only difference (for the most part) is that Personal can be installed on five devices on the same email address.  Family you can have up to six on (I believe) six different addresses.  And yes you get more Onedrive space (1Tb per user) and extra Skype minutes per user, which isn't a deal breaker by themselves.

All of that withstanding you could have done far better than £80 anyway on Family 365.

zouzouni

@Neil_Jones, thanks for your reply. Yes, I definitely got this wrong. The webchat representative I talked to this morning did not explain to me that the remaining time would be added to my Family subscription, just that I was buying two separate products and no refund would be given. All clear now, so thank you for your help.

Grey_Critic

I have Office 2010 Professional running on Windows 10 with no problems. I bought a new laptop a couple of years ago and loaded it only to have problems.

The 365 which came with the new laptop clashed with Office 2010. Removed 365 and everything was OK. 

I do recall that when W10 first came out it was reported Office 2010 would not work with it but not true.

Neil_Jones

Grey_Critic said:

I do recall that when W10 first came out it was reported Office 2010 would not work with it but not true.

Everybody says everything will not work with a newer version of Windows.  Its rarely the case.

Windows is full of backwards compatibility code (some by default, a lot of it not) and with regards to software it will usually only break because some legacy software uses something that behaved one way in the older version and for whatever reason is not supported in the new one.  This is more likely with third party software, not Microsoft software like Office.  You can go back as far as Office 95 and it'll (mostly) work in 10.