Microsoft Office subscription

Cazzaroo

Hi,

I'm a mum of a undergraduate Uni student.  My annual MS Office subscription came out of my account today.  On doing a bit of searching, I found out that if an account is set up using my son's Uni email address, he can get it for free.

He has an Apple laptop.

My question is, will it still work on his laptop (there is something about PC only) and can I use it as well on my desktop?  

Thanks in advance.

Caz

Mark_d

It appears that only your son can get Office for free.  You would need to buy a licence or pay a subscription

DullGreyGuy

Office 365 is OS agnostic however certain apps are only available on certain platforms. So if he subscribes to the free tier he'll be able to run Excel, Word etc but if he paid for the higher tier then Publisher, Access are Windows only.

Mr.Generous

Cheaper to buy an office licence from someone like Gamers Outlet - Office Proffessional Pro for less than £10. You buy the licence and they take you to a download for the correct version for your PC / laptop / Mac.

They do work, do update, and are genuine copies. Cheaper than a subscription.

https://www.gamers-outlet.net/en/software/microsoft-office-2021-professional-plus-iso?sort=p.number_sales&order=DESC&limit=20

DullGreyGuy

Mr.Generous said:

Cheaper to buy an office licence from someone like Gamers Outlet - Office Proffessional Pro for less than £10. You buy the licence and they take you to a download for the correct version for your PC / laptop / Mac.

They do work, do update, and are genuine copies. Cheaper than a subscription.

https://www.gamers-outlet.net/en/software/microsoft-office-2021-professional-plus-iso?sort=p.number_sales&order=DESC&limit=20

How is £10 cheaper than £0?
If you read the feedback it also says that it doesn't work on a Mac which the OP states its to be installed on

The site very much looks like one of those illegally reselling corporate activation codes hence it being "pro" and only usable once etc. 

YBR

Is the subscription yours for your machine, or for your son?

He can get it free while a student, and it may be best for him to sort himself out.

It doesn't answer the question but you could consider LibreOffice instead?

Mr.Generous

DullGreyGuy said:

Mr.Generous said:

Cheaper to buy an office licence from someone like Gamers Outlet - Office Proffessional Pro for less than £10. You buy the licence and they take you to a download for the correct version for your PC / laptop / Mac.

They do work, do update, and are genuine copies. Cheaper than a subscription.

https://www.gamers-outlet.net/en/software/microsoft-office-2021-professional-plus-iso?sort=p.number_sales&order=DESC&limit=20

How is £10 cheaper than £0?
If you read the feedback it also says that it doesn't work on a Mac which the OP states its to be installed on

The site very much looks like one of those illegally reselling corporate activation codes hence it being "pro" and only usable once etc. 

You buy the license then download the latest version from the microsoft website. Sounds highly illegal. I thought it might be helpful to someone, and obviously it helped keep you entertained reading the reviews. 

For many people a one off payment for the latest office software (ignore the 2021 you download the latest) is better than an annual subscription. If the OP can get it for her son free then great, although he probably won't be a student for ever.

 The OP may also consider £8.63 a reasonable price for a second copy for her PC. When I got a new laptop I was offered Office from Dell for a huge sum, I checked PC world and I think it was in the region of £500. I used Gamers outlet, I couldn't load my Office CD and the tech support very quickly helped me get it up and running.

DullGreyGuy

Mr.Generous said:

DullGreyGuy said:

Mr.Generous said:

Cheaper to buy an office licence from someone like Gamers Outlet - Office Proffessional Pro for less than £10. You buy the licence and they take you to a download for the correct version for your PC / laptop / Mac.

They do work, do update, and are genuine copies. Cheaper than a subscription.

https://www.gamers-outlet.net/en/software/microsoft-office-2021-professional-plus-iso?sort=p.number_sales&order=DESC&limit=20

How is £10 cheaper than £0?
If you read the feedback it also says that it doesn't work on a Mac which the OP states its to be installed on

The site very much looks like one of those illegally reselling corporate activation codes hence it being "pro" and only usable once etc. 

You buy the license then download the latest version from the microsoft website. Sounds highly illegal. I thought it might be helpful to someone, and obviously it helped keep you entertained reading the reviews. 

For many people a one off payment for the latest office software (ignore the 2021 you download the latest) is better than an annual subscription. If the OP can get it for her son free then great, although he probably won't be a student for ever.

 The OP may also consider £8.63 a reasonable price for a second copy for her PC. When I got a new laptop I was offered Office from Dell for a huge sum, I checked PC world and I think it was in the region of £500. I used Gamers outlet, I couldn't load my Office CD and the tech support very quickly helped me get it up and running.

You are buying the license not the software hence you can download the software from anywhere, as long as it's the right version. 

Not saying explicitly from this site, and there are others selling them at $0.75, but they are generally reselling licenses from massive corporates who ultimately cannot easily track if they have 200,000 or 200,010 live users across the globe at any one time. As you aren't their employee the license is invalid and you are using the software illegitimately.

Probability of anything go wrong is slim but the lack of consequences shouldn't justify the action. Plus you're paying for stolen property which always irks to some degree.  

silvercar

DullGreyGuy said:

Mr.Generous said:

DullGreyGuy said:

Mr.Generous said:

Cheaper to buy an office licence from someone like Gamers Outlet - Office Proffessional Pro for less than £10. You buy the licence and they take you to a download for the correct version for your PC / laptop / Mac.

They do work, do update, and are genuine copies. Cheaper than a subscription.

https://www.gamers-outlet.net/en/software/microsoft-office-2021-professional-plus-iso?sort=p.number_sales&order=DESC&limit=20

How is £10 cheaper than £0?
If you read the feedback it also says that it doesn't work on a Mac which the OP states its to be installed on

The site very much looks like one of those illegally reselling corporate activation codes hence it being "pro" and only usable once etc. 

You buy the license then download the latest version from the microsoft website. Sounds highly illegal. I thought it might be helpful to someone, and obviously it helped keep you entertained reading the reviews. 

For many people a one off payment for the latest office software (ignore the 2021 you download the latest) is better than an annual subscription. If the OP can get it for her son free then great, although he probably won't be a student for ever.

 The OP may also consider £8.63 a reasonable price for a second copy for her PC. When I got a new laptop I was offered Office from Dell for a huge sum, I checked PC world and I think it was in the region of £500. I used Gamers outlet, I couldn't load my Office CD and the tech support very quickly helped me get it up and running.

You are buying the license not the software hence you can download the software from anywhere, as long as it's the right version. 

Not saying explicitly from this site, and there are others selling them at $0.75, but they are generally reselling licenses from massive corporates who ultimately cannot easily track if they have 200,000 or 200,010 live users across the globe at any one time. As you aren't their employee the license is invalid and you are using the software illegitimately.

Probability of anything go wrong is slim but the lack of consequences shouldn't justify the action. Plus you're paying for stolen property which always irks to some degree.  

I thought they were excess licences from hardware manufacturers who were supplying the software with their laptop/ computer sales. So the likes of Dell may buy the right to supply 100k licences with their laptop sales and don’t use them all.

jovial32

Mr.Generous said:

Cheaper to buy an office licence from someone like Gamers Outlet - Office Proffessional Pro for less than £10. You buy the licence and they take you to a download for the correct version for your PC / laptop / Mac.

They do work, do update, and are genuine copies. Cheaper than a subscription.

https://www.gamers-outlet.net/en/software/microsoft-office-2021-professional-plus-iso?sort=p.number_sales&order=DESC&limit=20

A warning about these cheap Professional Pro Plus licences.  IMO they are not legit.  They may install, activate and stay activated, and even appear in your Microsoft Account as a download.  BUT - and it's a big BUT.  I had one of these - Professional Pro Plus 2021.  As 2021 only had a year left to run, I decided, when doing some tidying and planning ahead.  To get Office 2024 which lasts until 2029.  Only to find I could not uninstall the professional pro plus 2021.  By which I mean it seemed to uninstall but when I tried to install my new official Microsoft 2024 Home, it kept reverting to Professional Pro Plus 2021.  I could not get my official Office 2024 Home to stay installed.  I tried a number of times and eventually ended up having to have Microsoft Remote assistance trying to uninstall Pro Plus 2021 for me - and they couldn't get it to stay uninstalled either.  Even removing it with Revo didn't work.  I ended up having to do a clean install of Windows - during which, all the additional updating, caused some overheating and I had hardware failure and had to get a new computer.  All that just to install official Microsoft Office ............  I suspect these cheap professional pro plus licences do something to the registry - which makes them appear activated - and it's a change that can't be undone without a clean install.  So my advice - it's not worth it.  Buy it from the microsoft store for £119.99 - for me it cost me my computer and a load of hassle in the end by not doing that in the first place.

There is information out there that these Professional Pro Plus licences are "volume licences" which these companies are selling on.  But that might not be the case.  I suspect they are not legit in the slightest.  So even if it works - is it worth borking your computer for?