Microsoft Office 2010 licensing robbery?

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Lucas Buck

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The company that I work for uses office 2010. Lets say that we have 20 licenses for 20 computers. If we re-install or re-image those computers we have to buy 20 additional licenses because the licenses that we have for the product suddenly becomes invalid, even though we paid for the product and the 20 licenses.

This way of doing business seems unethical to me.
 
No you don't. Just don't have more than 20 copies installed at once.
 
Sinbad said:
No you don't. Just don't have more than 20 copies installed at once.
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I'm not sure that i fully understand what you're trying to say. This product needs to be installed on 20 computers and we use one liscence key for these 20 computers.
 
The same as with windows activation, phone MS Activation service and tell them you reloaded the computers
 
If you have proof of licenses, you should be able to just install office on the computers any which way you want without fear of legal repercussions.

It is odd that it is usually easier to pirate programs onto a PC rather than go through all the ligitmate legal carp.
 
byron_spy said:
The same as with windows activation, phone MS Activation service and tell them you reloaded the computers
Click to expand...

Will they? because the guy in charge of licenses at our work purchases 500 licences at a time and we are apparently moving on to our third batch of licenses.
 
Last edited:
If:
You are on a Volume licensing agreement and your VSA is active you have full right to remove the Office from the old machine and install it on a new one

In fact if your organization is that size you SHOULD be running a KMS server which prevents having to phone MS to activate even as the KMS server will activate your copies and reactivate every 180 days if memory serves

If you are buying 1500 OEM copies you deserve to be shot for being retarded :)

*Edit the only purchases that you'd have to do extra is if you run MS Windows 7 Pro on Volume licensing you *technically* have to have an edition of Windows 7 Home preloaded on the machine as Volume Windows 7 keys are meant to be upgrade keys
 
theone said:
Will they? because the guy in charge of licenses at our work purchases 500 liscences at a time and we are apparently moving on to our third batch of liscences.
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That is very odd. With bulk license purchases you usually don't even need to activate. It works on a trust system, but if you ever get visited by the BSA you better hope you only have it installed on X number of machines.
 
theone said:
The company that I work for uses office 2010. Lets say that we have 20 licenses for 20 computers. If we re-install or re-image those computers we have to buy 20 additional licenses because the licenses that we have for the product suddenly becomes invalid, even though we paid for the product and the 20 licenses.

This way of doing business seems unethical to me.
Click to expand...

It really depends on what type of licencing you have and if it is using the same hardware again.

But as longs as he has the fully packaged product (disc,box and CD key), reinstalling on the same machines shouldn't be a problem.

If there is a volume licencing agreement with Microsoft, then it is even more unlikely that this is necessary.
 
PsyWulf said:
If you are buying 1500 OEM copies you deserve to be shot for being retarded :)
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I fully agree because it's a waste of money, believe me I've been tried to talk to some people (the ones at my work place) because what they were doing didn't make sense to me. I just took it for granted that it was the way the system worked because the people responsible for making the decisions told me that this is how the system works. The first post was because of frustration on how this is affecting some work that needs to be completed.

I think that they've been doing the same things for our Windows 7 liscensing :cry:

PsyWulf said:
*Edit the only purchases that you'd have to do extra is if you run MS Windows 7 Pro on Volume licensing you *technically* have to have an edition of Windows 7 Home preloaded on the machine as Volume Windows 7 keys are meant to be upgrade keys
Click to expand...

We are running Office Profesional Plus 2010 and needs to be installed on new and old computers.
 
Give my licensing consultant a poke on kevin.george (at ) immix.co.za
They'll be able to give you a far better rundown on how to clean this mess up,but everything I said is accurate

Your company is wasting a fart-ton on fees if your description is accurate
 
Always remember a license is valid for one computer, doesn't matter if this gets formatted or trashed then you can just install on another machine

1 License = 1 machine

Your are rightfully entitled to this as this is a standard license terms
 
byron_spy said:
Always remember a license is valid for one computer, doesn't matter if this gets formatted or trashed then you can just install on another machine

1 License = 1 machine

Your are rightfully entitled to this as this is a standard license terms
Click to expand...

Unless it's OEM which is linked to the original hardware
 
theone said:
Will they? because the guy in charge of licenses at our work purchases 500 liscences at a time and we are apparently moving on to our third batch of liscences.
Click to expand...

Yes they will, I've done it before.

With the license key that is usually on a sticker on the machine. After multiple formats and re-installs the license won't validate online. Phone and they give will do it for you. YMMV this was Windows XP.
 
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