Microsoft Office on W7 64 bit and W8.1 64 bit - Xpost

[David]

I'm slowly being driven towards buying Microsoft Office because LibreOffice is just not compatible with the most recent '.docx' formats.

It is nearly there, but not quite.

I deal with various people and groups which are wedded to Microsoft Office.

I would prefer to install to my local computer, not just use cloudy services.

My computers are a mix of W7 and W8.1 (with one W10 box under the table and not in daily use).

The most recent versions seem to be W10 only (both Office and Office 365) and there is some suggestion that Office 2016 may be W10 specific, although that doesn't seem right.

eBay is full of "genuine" license keys for not very much money but I'm a bit dubious about the legality.

For example you can buy Offfice 365 2016 for 5 PCs for £4.97.

It is a long time since I looked at buying Microsoft software and so the whole area is a bit of a puzzle.

I know that it is turning to the dark side, but any advice most welcome.

Cheers

Dave R

[Robin]

Well one counterfactual is that Office 2016 has been running (well, crawling) on a really old* Win 7 (32 bit) laptop here for nearly a year.

*Dell Inspiron 630m with 2GB

[Char Jackson]

<snip>

Office 2016 installs and works as expected on 7 and 8.1 and 10. Office 2019 requires Windows 10 or Server 2019.

[dennis]

Well it must be OK as they offer your money back when it doesn't work.

Do M$ actually do a perpetual license for office 365?

There are enterprise licenses but a company gets charged when they are activated and each year afterwards.

[Steve Walker]

Not for 365, as that is the subscription model, with ongoing upgrades to later versions.

You can get Home and Student or Home and Office versions as one offs though, but they are not cheap.

365 Home and Student is £79 a year for 5 machines, non-365 Home and Student is £113-odd at my local shop for a single machine. The Home and Office version is £179. 10 years ago Home and student, as a one off, was £79 for 3 machines!

As a household with multiple machines (two adults and three children in the household), 365 works out a better deal for us, although I am considering Libre Office or the like.

SteveW

[polygonum_on_google]

Last week spent some time removing bits of Office 2003, 2007, 2010 and working 2013 from four Windows 7 PCs. In order to do a clean (as reasonably practical) install of Office 2016 (365).

No issues.

Note: Microsoft have at last turned the corner and actually recommend installing the 64-bit version. However, I think there are various issues which preclude it choosing to do so. Excel seems a touch happier in the 64-bit world. Check before you install.

[Brian Gaff]

Its Office 2019 now by the looks of it. However I try to get fold to still use the old doc format as I've had no end of problems with the newer versions even when used with other office products. I think Microsoft have a lot of bugs in their current offering and never seem to fix them. Brian

[Brian Gaff]

Yes that mac may be different, but from what I have heard 365 is just going to stay as it is if you do not sign up for the updates. Not sure what I think about this. We blindies have had this kind of rent at a price on software for years with Jaws, where every update costs dosh. Its like renting it. Brian

[Jaimie Vandenbergh]

Office shows that more than Windows, even. I've had no end of trouble getting Office to understand older files, having to spin up an old copy of Office 2011 to load and save as "the same" format in order to get them into Office 365.

It always makes be sigh and chuckle whenever someone insists on paying for MS Office for compatibility. LibreOffice does a better job with old Office docs than Office does. I've had Apple Pages and Numbers do a better job than Office 2019.

Cheers - Jaimie

[Pancho]

Most documents I share as PDF, but they are intended as uneditable.

I stared using LibreOffice Writer (then it was OpenOffice) because it had an export to PDF and MS office didn't.

Now I only have MS Office for Excel.

[John Rumm]

2019 is Win 10 only, 2016 and earlier will run on 7 through 10.

(note you can still upgrade any legit Win 7 or 8.1 box to win 10 if you want. If you grab the download tool from MS:

run it on the machine you want to upgrade, and then select "this machine" rather than have it build an install media)

Indeed.

There may be some legit reselling of volume license key versions that were disposed of by businesses.

But that seems suspect for a number of reasons (Office 365 is never a "This Is A One Time Online Activation - Lifetime Subscription, No renewal", the whole purpose of it is software rental rather than perpetual licence. You nee Office Home and Student or Home & Business or Pro for a perpetual license.