Moving my MS Office

I'm in the market for a new laptop. Back in the day when I bought my current machine, it was common practice for them to come with MS Office. That puts me in the situation of having been using Office for the last six years (on the same machine) without having a disk for it.

When I end up with my new laptop (with its "Office Trial Package") the last thing I'll want to do is shell out $80 for a new copy of a programme I already have. I prefer the old Office 2003, anyway.

I understand that going into Program Files and copying the whole folder will probably not work. I have no intention of keeping Office on my old machine (whether or not that's legal). I just want to drag the old programme across somehow - which I fear, because I have no disks. About all I have from my current machine is the product code on the laptop's bottom. No other codes, disks or help.

Am I stuck?

 

your only way out is to call msft and ask for replacement media. That will get you the install cd. if msft even has them available anymore.

You will not be able to simply drag the program install folder from one machine to another.

Then (research this on your own) find some way to recover the license key that the current install of office 2003 is using.

With those two items in hand (assuming your license is legit/recoverable) you will be able to install O2003 on your new machine.

I'm sure that other people here will give you other advice, but the key is to remain in compliance with licensing terms. that means installing from msft-supplied media and using a legit license key.

An alternative to all of this is to try out the free and open source OpenOffice (current ver 3.2.0, v3.2.1 in late RC testing). OO is a decent functional competitor to Office 2003. Once you install OO, be sure to get into the configs and tell it to exclusively use Microsoft Office formats (.doc, .xls, etc, etc) instead of the industry standard odt formats. If you want to start using the newer Office formats like .docx, etc, OpenOffice can read/write those as well.

 

Google how to recover your Office 2003 license key. Then acquire the installation files for Office 2003, if a friend has the install CD or maybe at work you can find a copy or you can acquire it via other methods which I cannot discuss, then install and use your recovered key.

Open Office sucks. It's nowhere near as good as Office. Especially if your not used to OO's layout and functions, they're totally different from Office.

 

Thank you for the advice, friends. I think I'll be putting in a call to MS. Er...if they don't sell an older version of Office, what would be the best place to get hold of a legitimate and legal version of an older Office that won't give my computer digital herpes?

 

Yes. I'm an old fart, stuck in my ways, and I absolutely shan't be getting hold of Open Office, or Word Perfect, or any other perfectly useful but different software.

I just want to know the best and safest place to get hold of an older version of Word. Kind of on the cheap, like.

 

There's nothing wrong with wanting Office. It's the best office suite out there, the only negative is that it costs money. And it doesn't cost much considering how much you use it.

But check around all the deal sites once in a while, MSFT has huge discounts all the time for tons of different groups (students, retail people, etc.)

 

The only bad thing is that if Office came with that PC, it is likely an OEM copy that cannot legally be installed on another computer.

 

ebay or craigslist

As to the original question--moving office.

Depending on what was installed, you may not even be legally entitled to move it. With that legal caveat out of the way...

I have never tried to move office, but I have had limited success with other programs...but it is a pain in the butt.

For example, I had to move a proprietary program that is no longer made from a dying (but bootable) computer to another.

This involved moving the program file folder to the new machine, exporting large chunks of the registry (for example, large parts of hkcu/software key and hklm/software--in office's case, it would probably require hkclasses root...more than was needed, resulting in excess crap being moved from the old machine), running the program, getting error messages about missing files, moving files, running, getting errors...etc...

It took hours, but I did succeed. Office, however, is a far more involved program than most.

 

wut yourself. I let the OP know how to get legit media and recover existing keys for his O2003 installation. In light of his need to not spend any more $$ for a new Office license, I also let him know of a free alternative shoudl he need to go that way. It's his decision.

You chimed in with a declaration that OO sucks because it's UI is different than what Office uses.