Microsoft is checking everyone's bags for unsupported Office installs

Re:Microsoft is checking everyone's bags for unsupported Off... by csdvrx on Saturday January 21, 2023 @09:58AM (#34466819)

Office 2007 and 2010 are like an secret way to have Word open faster than notepad, or a full Outlook that takes less space than the individual Mail or Calendar files.

2007 is wonderful in 32 bit for Wine. 2010 is wonderful in 64 bit native on Windows 11. And you get a "forever" license for like $30 on ebay (the activation server may refuse activation right now, but it can be made to work for new computers, and it's not a problem if you have an already activated one)

They recently cut both from OWA connectivity to outlook.com, but google conveniently provides a pluging (Google WorkSpace Sync) to keep going with gmail.

I'll invest an insane amount of effort to keep them going, just because how how pleasant and reactive they are - and if that requires running in Wine from WSL, so be it.

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Re:Microsoft is checking everyone's bags for unsupported Off... by throwifasd on Saturday January 21, 2023 @10:19AM (#34466981)

Spacebar heating at it's finest.

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Re:Microsoft is checking everyone's bags for unsupported Off... by grishka on Saturday January 21, 2023 @10:31AM (#34467073)

Except Microsoft Office is a feature-complete product that doesn't need any further work and only gets objectively worse with each major release.

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Re:Microsoft is checking everyone's bags for unsupported Off... by yccs27 on Saturday January 21, 2023 @12:53PM (#34468388)

Some Office features that came after 2010:

- Latex math formulas

- SVG graphics

- Opening PDFs in Word

- Alignment guides for images and other objects

and these are just the ones I noticed with my limited MS Office use.

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Re:Microsoft is checking everyone's bags for unsupported Off... by petodo on Saturday January 21, 2023 @01:50PM (#34469038)

my other work software would disagree, had to update office to be able to export stuff to XLS, didn't work with older version and I can't use older version either because company send me files in newer format, so I had to upgrade everything because of them

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Re:Microsoft is checking everyone's bags for unsupported Off... by mongol on Saturday January 21, 2023 @12:16PM (#34467962)

I have a valid license of 2010 but it was not installed at the time the activation server news broke. So I don't know how to install it any more. Are there any tricks that can help? Still the same computer as I originally had it on.

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Re:Microsoft is checking everyone's bags for unsupported Off... by schroeding on Saturday January 21, 2023 @12:45PM (#34468294)

You can try the alternative phone activation hotlines[1], they might work.

[1] https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/-telephone-activa...

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Re:Microsoft is checking everyone's bags for unsupported Off... by csdvrx on Saturday January 21, 2023 @12:57PM (#34468445)

I've enough valid licenses for every computer I use to have Office 2010 (or 2007 as I play with old hardware from time to time)/

I've reinstalled Office on a spare laptop 2 weeks ago, and it's just fine.

> Are there any tricks that can help? Still the same computer as I originally had it on.

Yes, there are ways to make it work. Use google to find them.

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Re:Microsoft is checking everyone's bags for unsupported Off... by gr4yb34rd on Saturday January 21, 2023 @03:29PM (#34470127)

massgravel on github is probably the easiest route if phone activation doesn't work out.

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