Office 13 Retail May Be Bound to One PC Forever

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Antimatter79

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How can they even define what constitutes a new PC?! That has to be the most convoluted policy ever. What if you just want to replace your OS Hard drive? Are they gonna try to say "oh, well the old hard drive--that's the PC so you have to buy another copy? What if you replace your mobo only? "Oh yeah, well, the mobo is a computer, too, so you have to buy another copy"
 
[citation][nom]heero yuy[/nom]isn't that illegal?i'm sure there's some law regarding software licenses (something about that they cannot be locked to one machine or something)[/citation]
Nope. Your OS is almost always tied to the box you install it on unless you purchase the full retail version of the OS. Pre-installs, OEMs, and Upgrades are always tied to the box that you put it on, and is not transferable.

For an OS this makes some amount of sense. The reason you do not often see it on other pieces of software is because people simply do not purchase the software (as MS is finding out). There have been some games and professional softwares over the years who have tried this, but they end up just loosing customers, so most of the time it is not done.
 

SteelCity1981

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[citation][nom]caedenv[/nom]Not quite right. If you replace a HDD then you simply reinstall your office suite like normal. No big deal. The company I work for is a refurbisher and MS looks at a machine as the housing/case + motherboard/CPU (and even the CPU can usually be replaced without issue). So unless something has changed (which I doubt) then you are talking about still having the ability to change/upgrade/replace most aspects of a machine, so long as the core devices (case, mobo, cpu) are all still present and accounted for.If the system fails and needs a new motherboard and you have an OEM license, then it is typically just a simple chat with MS to explain that the system died, and the change in motherboard is due to a replacement, and not a new build. I would imagine that this new license scheme is very similar.For laptop users this is rough as it is rarely worth fixing a system, so most of the time you simply replace it, which in this case would also mean a new copy of Office. For desktop users though, MS has always been quite lenient. The problem that MS has is that PC (desktop) hardware is so fluid that there is no practical way for them to know if your 5 year old system died, and so you replaced it with modern parts as a repair, or if you simply upgraded the system without a failure, or if you replaced the system entirely with a fresh new build. MS is not about to call their customers liars and thieves, so they have typically let system builders get away with just about anything. It will be interesting with these new policies to see if they continue to do this, or if MS will crack down on it and stop letting users abuse the system. I remember when XP Home came out there was a lot of worry because MS would only allow users to upgrade up to 3 major hardware components over a 4 (or 6?) month period. But there was no way for them to properly enforce it, so it never really became a problem. Will this be much the same? Or does MS have new tricks up their sleeve?Still, the new Office terms absolutely suck. Office (Home and Student anyways) use to be good for 3 devices for $140. I personally use it on 2, and found it to be a fair deal. But now I 'get' to pay the exact same price PER MACHINE rather than per household. That is a raw deal. I am not about to drop $280 on Office to upgrade us from 2007. I typically upgrade every 2 revisions (~6 years), and I was prepared to pay my $140 for Office Home and Student 2013 for my home... but I am not going to sit down and pay 2x as much for something that is largely a cosmetic upgrade.Office 365 is not a bad deal as you are allowed to have it on up to 5 devices at a time, and those devices can change over time, and you get the entire office suite plus extra Skydrive space. With the old way of doing things then we are talking about a $500 office suite per machine every 3 years, plus $20/yr for the added skydrive space. Instead you are talking about $300 over the same period, for 5 machines instead of 1. That is a phenomenal deal for families with kids who have their own computers! You would be nearly foolish to not jump on this if you had the 5 machines to put it on.Only problem for me is that I do not purchase the full Office suite, I purchase Home and Student, and even then only every 6 years. So then we are talking about jacking up my actual costs of using office up by $460 over a 6 year period. That is not such a great deal, so no thank you! When MS comes out with an Office 365 package with 20GB of skydrive for $40/yr for 2 machines then I will consider it. Even if they charged $50/yr for 2-3 machines I would probably jump on it, but $100 for the 'privileged' of using it on machines that don't exist is silly.[/citation]

did you even read the article it said crash mening anything from dead hard drive t motherboards, there was nothing in that article that didn't state any particular crash was safe.
 
[citation][nom]DRosencraft[/nom]This absolutely stinks. Absolutely. Loved to use office in the past. I got it cheap, usually on sales, used it forever, transferring it all over the place if the system up and died, or I simply upgraded. How will this affect upgrading hardware? Does that mean if I change motherboards I have to worry about my license suddenly not working? Microsoft, the gaming industry, all these companies trying to kill off the ability to use easily or reuse software, is really getting on my nerves.[/citation]
I don't know about that. I think there was a trend towards it some 5 years ago, but now software tends to be tied to the person rather than the hardware. Just look at Steam licensing and how that works at moving games from box to box fairly fluidly. This Office 2013 thing is by far the exception and not the rule for modern software. MS is simply making it a crappy deal to push people towards Office 365 so that they can get that smaller yearly paycheck. If it comes down to a person needing to purchase 2+ copies of Office Home and Student for $280+, or looking at Office 365 for 5 machines, with the full office suite, plus 20GB of skydrive, then it is simple math, people with move to Office 365. And Office 365 will follow you and your current devices without the same fears as stated in the article. But still, if you do not upgrade every 3 years when a new Office is released, or you are like me and only have 2 machines with Office... then ya... still a raw deal.

But the point is that this very much bucks the trend, and most software can be transferred between machines without much issue. The obvious exception to this is Rosetta Stone which is a great program, but thinks it is stolen just out of the blue for no reason which then causes you to waste time with customer support trying to prove that you only have it installed on 2 devices before they give you a new key for something where absolutely no changes have taken place.
 
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Laugh steelcity, did you even read the article as you claimed he didn't?

I've never heard of anyone that had a HDD crash had to go out and buy a WHOLE new pc. Your ignorance is showing. Maybe YOU should re-read it.
 

p05esto

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My god is Microsoft going down hill FAST. I used to be such a staunch supporter and now I can't think of a single thing they are doing right. It's truly a dark time for computer enthusiasts. The likes of Apple and Google have infected the whole industry.... it's so depressing and sucky..
 

themissingpiece

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First, let me say that I'm pretty sure that Microsoft allows you to deactivate your Office licence from their website, provided that you linked your copy of Office with your MS account. This will allow you to reinstall on another machine.

Instead of simply pledging to go to LibreOffice/Google Docs, I hope that Microsoft alleviates the confusion. However, I know from experience that MS is very lax with their licences if you call them, provided that you purchased the software legitimately. I personally love MS Pro Plus 2013, with its seamless Skydrive integration. It also helps that I got it for $10 due to my work discount.
 

loomis86

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I hate office 2007 and everything that came after it. When office 2003 and windows 7 ceases to serve me well, I will leave microsoft for ever.
 

tntom

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I could care less what they do. I have several licenses to Office 2000 and 2003. Never use them anymore. In fact 2003 is in a sealed unopened box. Started using OpenOffice.org in 2002 and now LibreOffice. I tried 2010 and it was just too slow with half the screen wasted on toolbars.
 
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This is illegal in many countries according to this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-sale_doctrine#Application_to_digital_copies, see paragraph 3. You buy one legitimate copy, its yours to do what you want with it (with exceptions; the code is still IP). Way to go Microsoft! Encourage piracy!
 

spectrewind

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"It sounds like the licensing key may be tied to a computer's MAC address"

Hmm, so I install a Microsoft Loopback Adapter ... Go into the device manager, [advanced] tab, set a custom MAC address, and point the software to that (multiple NICs)? Then, wherever the install goes, an additional loopback adapter gets installed with the same custom MAC address?
Nah, they'd block that...
 

lockhrt999

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Get a discreet Ethernet PCI card and disable on-board ethernet while installing office suite.
While moving to new system use same ethernet card to reactivate the same office suite.
 
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I suggest people get OpenOffice. It's free and better than M$ crap they are trying to force
 

technicalbass

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All the more reason to pirate Office. MS you aren't going to sell more copies in the long run doing this, you are going to alienate your customers and either ask for them to steal it or go to another software package altogether. Brilliant!

Then again, this is Toms Hardware and their rumors don't tend to hold much merit.
 
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