Which of these Office versions is the best deal for a student?

I will be a freshman in less than three weeks, so I need to go buy Microsoft Office. However I'm having a hard time looking for the best package. I have both a desktop and a laptop so I'm looking to have Office on both machines. Here are the two options I've found.

3-User package of Office Home and Student - $125

2 copies of Office Professional Academic - $80 + $80 = 160

Do you think the inclusion of Access, Outlook, and Publisher warrant the extra $35? My school email does use this Outlook online thing, so maybe it would be helpful to have Outlook.

Though I have no CURRENT uses for Publisher or Access, it's very possible those two programs could be helpful later in my college/graduate school career.

So which do you think is the best choice?

PS - Is it worth upgrading from Windows 7 Home to Pro for $30? What's in Pro that's worth the $30?

 

Neither of those options are great.

Openoffice.org

Much better and easier on the wallet (free) all the programs save in the microsoft formats and are compatible with Office programs and files.

I just saved your parents $125-$160.. they're welcome

 

+1 to OpenOffice.org

If you want a standalone email software, go for Thunderbird (+ Lightning add-on for calendars).

 

Besides the fact that there are certain features not in Open Office that I need in my Office suite, OO uses more resources, is slower, uglier, and buggier from my experience on my old desktop than Microsoft Office.

I'm leaning towards the Professional Academic bundle right now, unless someone could convince me otherwise.

 

Sure, if you need some features that are only in MS Office, go for it.

But there's no need for ^^^ this statement which is questionable at best.

 

Use Open Office until school starts. 90% of schools provide Office at a highly discounted pice, or even free.

 

I tried using Open Office. I had issues with compatibility when trying to open Microsoft Office files in Open Office and vice versa. I had issues with Open Office while working on some extensive lab reports. Had trouble with pictures loading or just not loading at all. Sometimes Open Office would just slow down to a crawl if I opened a document with a lot of pictures. Have not had any slow downs with Microsoft Office.

For now, use Open Office until school starts and then switch to Microsoft Office. You can also get Microsoft Office Starter for free from Microsoft. It is ad supported.

Most schools provide Microsoft Office for free. If not, they offer a discounted version. There are even some online stores where you can buy the student version of Office for less than $50 and you should be able to install the same copy on 2 computers as long as those 2 computers are your own. If it gives you problems saying that the key as already been used, just call up Microsoft Customer service and explain to them that you are a student and have a desktop and a laptop.

 

Keep in mind that a single office license works on two computer. So you can save $80 on the second academic license.

 

I didn't know that? I thought the Office was OEM.

 

Thank you! I confirmed this.

$80 for Professional Academic for both my laptop and desktop can't really be beat. My school, as it appears right now, doesn't have any Microsoft programs for sale but has plenty of Adobe products discounted.

 

Could you please show me where this is written ? I've searched and used
Microsoft's licensing questionnaire but it didn't mention academic versions.
The normal Office professional license is for a single computer.

Edit :

I just talked to Microsoft and learned that Office Professional 2010,
whether it's bought as academic or not, allows for a second copy to be
installed on a "portable device". See the license terms for confirmation.

They also said that this does not apply to the Windows 7 Professional upgrade.

 

Def wait until you go to school. I got Microsoft Office Home and Student for $7

 

+1 , i got mine for nearly the same price XD