Have a catastrophic pc failure and HAD M$ Office 2013 on it...

[Tx Redneck]

http://www.geek.com/articles/geek-pick/retail-copies-of-office-2013-are-tied-to-a-single-computer-forever-20130213

With the launch of Office 2013 Microsoft has seen fit to upgrade the terms of the license agreement, and it’s not in favor of the end user. It seems installing a copy of the latest version of Microsoft’s Office suite of apps ties it to a single machine. For life.

What does that mean in real terms? It means if your machine dies or you upgrade to a new computer you cannot take a copy of Office 2013 with you to new hardware. You will need to purchase another copy, which again will be tied to the machine it is installed upon forever.

This license change has been confirmed by The Age’s reporter Adam Turner after several frustrating calls to Microsoft’s tech support and PR departments. It effectively turns Office 2013 into the equivalent on the Windows OEM license where you get one chance to use it on a single piece of hardware.

Saved and Texan by the Grace of God, Redneck by choice.

[Unicorn Jeff]

But if you reformat you're ok? This is still pretty fucking stupid. I can see that they're trying to net as much $$$ as they can from people stealing their shit.

[Tx Redneck]

That's a scenario that isn't clear, but I guess if there's no major hardware change, it shouldn't be an issue.

Saved and Texan by the Grace of God, Redneck by choice.

[lowthreeohz]

I assume it's tying itself to the mac of the processor or something similar?

[Tx Redneck]

I assume it's tying itself to the mac of the processor or something similar?

If they follow suit of their normal activation process, it'll be tied to the nic. A good friend of mine figured out how they did it and reverse engineered the process to the point of being able to take an OE install and move it to completely new hardware without doing a reinstall and with zero stability or conflict problems.

Saved and Texan by the Grace of God, Redneck by choice.

[roliath]

I've installed my copy on three different PC's, one was re-imaged because I fucked up my skyrim re-install and reformatted.

On the third PC I wasn't able to activate, I had to activate over the phone.

[Ratt]

I work for a company that has VLK Microsoft products, so this doesn't apply; however, it's still pretty fucked up if that's happening to people.

[ram57ta]

This BS is why I quit using MS Office and switched to OpenOffice.

[roliath]

This BS is why I quit using MS Office and switched to OpenOffice.

A lot of people shit on OpenOffice and moved onto LibreOffice.

[ram57ta]

A lot of people shit on OpenOffice and moved onto LibreOffice.

I'll have to check that out...though I have no complaints with OpenOffice.

[roliath]

I'll have to check that out...though I have no complaints with OpenOffice.

Oracle dropped support and development of OpenOffice, its now handled by another group. LibreOffice is pretty much the defacto on all default nix installs now, it has more community support, updates are faster and released more often, and its open source.

[ceyko]

OpenOffice could really jack with MS files, which is why I quit using it. Will check on LibreOffice too!

So, crap like this is what causes people to use hacked/cracked software as well. Granted, some are cheap, some are thieves, but when software companies make their crap with no flexibility - it makes users say "F U". Torrents/etc are so easy to use, validate they are clean and accessible compared to doing it the legal way.

Similar to movies. Illegal versions, just PLAY. Buy legal versions you have to endure 20 minutes of crap or mash the FF button and be told that is not allowed.

For the record, I have easy mode on doing it legally with work and all that. However, I really GET why people get frustrated and use other methods. I HAVE been known to buy licensing/etc and use cracked versions though for a variety of reasons. (i.e. not wanting use CDs, not wanting to have to online (when overseas)...etc...etc)