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Does your copy of Office 2013 die with your computer?

theage.com.au

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Re: Does your copy of Office 2013 die with your computer?

#21

Post by kjackson2012 »

jwilliams wrote: post #19
kjackson2012 wrote: post #18

The only thing holding me back from going completely to Google Docs is the spreadsheet. For anything real, the Google Spreadsheet is simply not usable. It's a great proof of concept, and it works for small, unuseful spreadsheets, but for doing anything substantive, Excel is several orders of magnitude better. I don't care if I need to install a separate, native executable/plugin in order to get better performance. If…

I tend to agree - particularly on interactivity/performance - Is there something else that you're missing though? That said, every time I use Google Spreadsheets I'm surprised at much it's rapidly improving.

Mainly speed, usability, etc. If you have a large spreadsheet with tens of thousands of rows, trying to scroll back and forth makes it unusable.

Re: Does your copy of Office 2013 die with your computer?

#22

Post by aarongolliver »

This is stupid. There is a deactivate button on their website. It literally took me a minute to find it the first time I as looking for it. I've been able to deactivate and reactivate on more than two computers. The author should have done some research before spreading FUD.

http://i.imgur.com/Ei5wx1V.png

Re: Does your copy of Office 2013 die with your computer?

#23

Post by derefr »

mhw wrote: post #2

What seems bizarre about this is that the licensed software market seems to be moving full-speed towards app stores with one-off fees, perpetual licenses and broad usage rights across a customer's devices. But with Office 2013 Microsoft seems to be stuck with a strategy from about 5 years ago. Interesting data point that illustrates their confusion. On iOS the operating system can render Office documents for you with…

Microsoft make the lion's share of their money from businesses, not consumers. And the B2B software market--you know, the one Patrick Mackenzie says you should target if at all possible--is pretty much exactly aligned with Microsoft right now: per-seat SaaS subscription models.

Your point about "confusion" comes apart when you realize that there is almost nobody who wants to use Office, who then purchases a computer with Windows, but without Office. Computers bought from big-box stores already have Office on them. Computers bought in tech refreshes by Big Corporations have Office imaged onto them as part of the deployment. Office is a "separate product", but Windows isn't built to expect you to not have an office suite. The only reason it's optional at all is so you have the option to use a competitor.

Re: Does your copy of Office 2013 die with your computer?

#24

Post by Karunamon »

aarongolliver wrote: post #22

This is stupid. There is a deactivate button on their website. It literally took me a minute to find it the first time I as looking for it. I've been able to deactivate and reactivate on more than two computers. The author should have done some research before spreading FUD. http://i.imgur.com/Ei5wx1V.png

The problem is the fact that this whole "activations" thing is completely unnecessary and completely user-hostile (no bonus points for guessing whether pirates have to deal with this).

Even Apple, the poster child for the walled garden, locked down app stores we all love to hate doesn't limit how many devices you can have a given application installed on. They do limit the amount of devices that can protected music and videos can be played on, but even then they give you a once per year "deauthorize all" button (with exceptions granted with a quick call to support) and a de/reauthorize button in the app!

Re: Does your copy of Office 2013 die with your computer?

#26

Post by gizmo686 »

nwh wrote: post #16
ars wrote: post #14

How do you define device? The CPU? The storage? The specific instance of the install? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship_of_Theseus

I imagine it will be like some forms of DRM. If you change even a hard disk, the entire copy is invalidated, as it's a 'different' computer.

I've had the unpleasent experience of within 1 week having my mother board replaced twice, and my wireless chip and keyboard replaced once. (And my bios service tag not properly reset after one of the motherboards). Through all of this, Windows somehow got the idea that I was pirating it (okay, pretty clear where it got this idea from). The license key that came with the CD did not work. After several boot cycles and re-tries at activating windows, I decided to try again, and when it failed that time I would use the activate by phone option. Somehow, when I ran the activation executable that time it activated without any further prompts. Not entirely sure what this story says about MS's computer fingerprinting.

Also, I left out of the story that: After the last hardware change windows booted several times without issue. After the first time it complained it was invalid the computer would fail to boot until I re-installed GRUB from a live cd. Between the GRUB incident and windows activating I identically let windows install updates (which I thought couldn't be done from an unactivated install). After these updates, when you try to log on, you get a fatal error in its attempt to launch 'your copy of windows might not be genuine' program, followed by a failure to launch explorer, followed by a black screen. I looked up the error, and it seems to be a result of the update unrelated to the activation issue. Booting into safemode and installing the update solved that. Several failed activation attempts later and my computer was good as new.)

One of the many reasons I use GNU/Linux as my primary OS.

Re: Does your copy of Office 2013 die with your computer?

#27

Post by randomfool »

aarongolliver wrote: post #22

This is stupid. There is a deactivate button on their website. It literally took me a minute to find it the first time I as looking for it. I've been able to deactivate and reactivate on more than two computers. The author should have done some research before spreading FUD. http://i.imgur.com/Ei5wx1V.png

The article focused on the license terms, not what you can get away with. If you run a small business and don't want to worry about BSA license audits, this stuff matters.

It also appears that you're using a student version of Office, the licensing terms are most likely different for that version.

Re: Does your copy of Office 2013 die with your computer?

#28

Post by maguay »

kjackson2012 wrote: post #18

The only thing holding me back from going completely to Google Docs is the spreadsheet. For anything real, the Google Spreadsheet is simply not usable. It's a great proof of concept, and it works for small, unuseful spreadsheets, but for doing anything substantive, Excel is several orders of magnitude better. I don't care if I need to install a separate, native executable/plugin in order to get better performance. If…

Curious: have you used Microsoft's web Excel in Skydrive? It has enough functions for my basic use, but then, so does Google Docs...

Re: Does your copy of Office 2013 die with your computer?

#29

Post by maguay »

derefr wrote: post #23
mhw wrote: post #2

What seems bizarre about this is that the licensed software market seems to be moving full-speed towards app stores with one-off fees, perpetual licenses and broad usage rights across a customer's devices. But with Office 2013 Microsoft seems to be stuck with a strategy from about 5 years ago. Interesting data point that illustrates their confusion. On iOS the operating system can render Office documents for you with…

Microsoft make the lion's share of their money from businesses, not consumers. And the B2B software market--you know, the one Patrick Mackenzie says you should target if at all possible--is pretty much exactly aligned with Microsoft right now: per-seat SaaS subscription models. Your point about "confusion" comes apart when you realize that there is almost nobody who wants to use Office, who then purchases a computer…

Actually, I've hardly ever seen a new computer come with a full licensed copy of Office. A trial of Office, yes, but not a full-featured edition.

Office 2007/2010's 3-seat family editions, though, did get a ton more normal users buying Office than anyone could have predicted.

Re: Does your copy of Office 2013 die with your computer?

#30

Post by pi18n »

gizmo686 wrote: post #26
nwh wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I imagine it will be like some forms of DRM. If you change even a hard disk, the entire copy is invalidated, as it's a 'different' computer.

I've had the unpleasent experience of within 1 week having my mother board replaced twice, and my wireless chip and keyboard replaced once. (And my bios service tag not properly reset after one of the motherboards). Through all of this, Windows somehow got the idea that I was pirating it (okay, pretty clear where it got this idea from). The license key that came with the CD did not work. After several boot cycles and…

Yet another case of DRM harming legitimate customers more than pirates. Meanwhile some guy in China is selling Windows DVDs with that stuff patched out and a full version of Office already installed.

There's absolutely no way I'd pay for an abusive experience like that, so I'll stick with GNU/Linux as well.

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