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MS Office Fakes Me Out
#1
The iMac my wife was using had a video-card problem, so I took the machine out of service and extracted the SSD running OS 10.12.6 (Sierra). I figured I'd use the SSD as an external for my own iMac, as I need to update mine to 10.13.x (High Sierra), and Office:Mac2011 won't let me install on High Sierra. Her iMac was running it fine.

So I've got the SSD now attached (via USB) to my iMac, but when I boot from it, Office acts like it's a new computer, and wants the activation code—which for this old version never works.

Question: The SSD is now attached to my computer, not inside my wife's computer, but it's the same drive with the same OS and the Users and the same Applications. So why doesn't Office:Mac2011 behave just as before?

Color me puzzled.

/Mr Lynn
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#2
It checks some kind of identifier that's unique to the motherboard.

Either LibreOffice or one of the cheap versions of office on Ebay, for me.
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#3
anonymouse1 wrote:
It checks some kind of identifier that's unique to the motherboard.

Either LibreOffice or one of the cheap versions of office on Ebay, for me.

That's what I'm beginning to think. Sly devils, those MSers!

As between LibreOffice and OpenOffice, which is better?

/Mr Lynn
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#4
Don't know about the free packages.

From eBay:
https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_dcat=3768&_fsrp=1&_sop=15&_nkw=microsoft+office+(2011%2C2016%2C2019)+mac&_sacat=3768&_from=R40&LH_ItemCondition=1000&rt=nc&LH_TitleDesc=0&For%2520Operating%2520Systems=Apple%2520macOS%252010%252E12%252C%2520Sierra%7CApple%2520Mac%2520OS%2520X%252010%252E10%252C%2520Yosemite%7CApple%2520Mac%2520OS%2520X%252010%252E11%252C%2520El%2520Capitan%7CApple%2520Mac%2520OS%2520X%252010%252E9%252C%2520Mavericks%7CMac
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#5
mrlynn wrote:
[quote=anonymouse1]
It checks some kind of identifier that's unique to the motherboard.

Either LibreOffice or one of the cheap versions of office on Ebay, for me.

That's what I'm beginning to think. Sly devils, those MSers!
This has been the case for years, BTW.
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#6
I use both Libre and Open and find Open holds closer to MS Office design thus easier to trans to.

20+ years of MS Word is truly difficult to leave and I still revert from time to time.
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#7
You can call Monopolysoft to get an activation code. You may need the retail box or, possibly, connect the external to its original device and grab the number(s) from the About Office menu item.
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#8
Speedy wrote:
You can call Monopolysoft to get an activation code. You may need the retail box or, possibly, connect the external to its original device and grab the number(s) from the About Office menu item.

I still have the original CD and activation code. It's a 'home and student' pack, which was good for a number of computers.

Whenever you enter the code, you get a message saying either "You are not on the Internet" (false), or "The activation server is unavailable." You can then try to activate by phone, which involves typing a long series of numbers on your phone, then entering a ridculously long series of numbers which the robot speaks on your computer, only to get a message that it "Failed."

I did actually get the phone activation business to work on a MBAir running Mojave (!) a few years ago, and on a 2010 MBP that I wiped last year and gave to Number Two Son's family. Guess I'll try it again, just for the halibut.

/Mr Lynn
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#9
This happened to my friends too, I think they ended up buying a new license. They had a 3 license teacher pack I think.

I wonder if there is a way to de-activate the MS Office from one machine and move it another. It should be a fixed number of simultaneous installs, not a total number of install.
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#10
space-time wrote:
This happened to my friends too, I think they ended up buying a new license. They had a 3 license teacher pack I think.

I wonder if there is a way to de-activate the MS Office from one machine and move it another. It should be a fixed number of simultaneous installs, not a total number of install.

The annoying thing is that I am just moving the drive from one machine to another. /Mr L
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