Second-hand MS Office licenses

[Freddyfruitba...]

So I recently needed to obtain a copy of Microsoft Office, and I'd be interested in people's take on my experience.

Didn't want the new subscription-model Office 365, which appears to be the only 'official' route now sold by Microsoft. There are any number of offerings available online though, some looking more dodgy than others, nut pretty much all of them involve a download-only option, with the supplier just providing a license number. Plenty of scope for getting stitched up then. I decided to go for this one on Groupon on the basis that with an international company involved it might be less iffy than some, and worst case scenario, I could afford to drop £50. The customer reviews were still pretty mixed though.

I was duly emailed a link by a third-party vendor called ClixDistri to download Office, along with a product key. After installation, I received an error message - big surprise - saying that my copy of Office 'could not be activated because the product key had already been activated the maximum number of times', blah blah blah. I whinged to the vendor and was told I had to follow the instructions at this link. This was a bit weird, because although the instructions were apparently for phone activation, they weren't at all, it was entirely online; and basically by following them (pretty tortuously), I ended up with MS' support site generating an "Installation ID" (9 groups of 7 digits; ie not a new license number) which I entered, and successfully activated my copy of Office. Big surprise, TBH.

The vendor, ClixDistri, apparently operates by flogging second-hand licenses of software which had been used elsewhere. They have a long FAQ, which I won't reproduce here, which explains the business model, their grounds for claiming it's perfectly legal, and also why I would have received the error message.

I don't understand how I was able to persuade MS to override their original refusal to activate the software, though. MS commonly sells software with a licence specifying that you can't transfer it to any other machine - ie, even if you upgrade your own laptop, they expect you to buy a new copy of the software for it. So how come I've been able to activate this now? What happened?

I don't have any major moral concerns about MS here, but I'm keen to know whether my activation will now last indefinitely or not...

(And by the way, just to pre-empt the obvious, for various reasons I did need to have Office, not one of the open source alternatives...)
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[kgm]

It should do, I've used cheap 'dodgy' licenses codes off of eBay for office and windows 10 a few times and never had any issues.

I prefer Linux and libre office so refuse to pay retail prices for something I rarely use.

[xX-Alex-Xx]

Do the activate by phone option. It’s VERY rare they actually deny it that method, you just declare (automated) that it’s not used on any other machine and it’ll spit out an activation code for you.

Ignoring the last line of your post (ie for anyone else): As mentioned, unless there’s specifically something in MS Office you need, download LibreOffice. Just as compatible and open source so no licensing ball aches
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DILLIGAF

[rdlzr77]

It should work without problems, unless you want to register to a company - even so, I guess it will work, but for mine I use the normal MS licensing.

[stinkwheel]

Turns out office 2007 still works on windows 10 and you can buy a full, lifetime licenced version for £15...
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“Rule one: Always stick around for one more drink. That's when things happen. That's when you find out everything you want to know.”
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