The Student Room Group

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Original post by karl pilkington
Just bought a new computer they said it had office I didn't realise they meant it was loaded but not activated. Any way to get office cheaper than paying full wack?


Are you a student (school, college, uni) that has access to Office365 through an institution licence?

You should be able to get the desktop copies of the Office suite through your institution Microsoft account if you do.
why not try out some of these excellent free office software offerings....

https://www.techradar.com/uk/news/the-best-free-office-software
As above office 365 is free if you are in education and have an academic email.
You can otherwise try free office suites or look for cheap keys if you want a legitimate copy or get a previous version.
Reply 4
Original post by karl pilkington
Just bought a new computer they said it had office I didn't realise they meant it was loaded but not activated. Any way to get office cheaper than paying full wack?

You can access the web version for free through the Microsoft website, if you have a Microsoft account.
Reply 5
I get it for free with my school emal.

Otherwise use libre / open office
Everyone is throwing out different alternatives, yet the most obvious one is missing.

Microsoft's Onedrive is free and comes with 5GB of free space (more than enough for simple documents) and, unless I'm mistaken, offers all the usual Office programs you'd need including: Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote
(edited 4 years ago)
The way we're not allowed to talk about.

I'd do that one. :cool:
Tootles mentioned the Microsoft website, that would imply Microsoft.com. There is no clear route to the online version of Office Online through there, when you look at the different office applications it takes you to product pages for Office 365. Tootles certainly meant Office Online, but the means of accessing it was completely off.
It isn't being pedantic at all. It's straight up what the words imply. Microsoft has a website. Onedrive is an online product. It's like saying "get that Ford" and then being disappointed because they gave you a poxy little Ford KA rather than the Mustang that you meant. Say what you mean, giving vague advice is just poor advice and leaves room for misinterpretation.

I didn't provide a method of accessing Office Online?

"Microsoft's Onedrive is free and comes with 5GB of free space (more than enough for simple documents) and, unless I'm mistaken, offers all the usual Office programs you'd need including: Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote"

What was that you said about thinking that people aren't so incompetent that they need handholding to understand? Might want to rethink that idea. It seems like you need a step by step guide to figure out how to use Office Online in Onedrive despite being a self-proclaimed "tech expert". I literally point the OP towards the product that allows them to access Office Online.

And finally, the good old cop-out. "oh they can just Google it anyway". Sure they can. They could've Googled this question as well, yet here we are...
Only goes to show that a self proclaimed "tech expert" needs their hand to be held through simple tasks. You can't access it through Microsoft's website (microsoft.com), you can access it through their product Onedrive. Onedrive is a Microsoft owned product accessed through your web browser, but it is not the "Microsoft website". If you need any more pointers, I'm more than confident that Microsoft has a helpful little tutorial for wanabe techies like yourself.


So remind me again what exactly your problem here is? You said nobody had mentioned the Office suite which comes with OneDrive. I corrected you by pointing out that Tootles already mentioned it. OneDrive is tied to a Microsoft account (as is Hotmail/Outlook and all their other services). Your original post, saying Office Online hadn't been mentioned was wrong.

I mean, if you want to carry on being all pedantic and what not, sure it was mentioned. However, if your issue with my post is the lack of "how to access it", Tootles post is also an insufficient answer. Please, feel free to harass Tootles about the lack of how you access office online with his post.

Deal with it rather than making up arguments to generate needless debate.

The irony is uncanny.
(edited 4 years ago)
Christ c'mon, you're BOTH wasting time and effort, let it go. :rolleyes:
Reply 12
Original post by karl pilkington
Just bought a new computer they said it had office I didn't realise they meant it was loaded but not activated. Any way to get office cheaper than paying full wack?


Yes there was ways to get office for nothing without being a student but it seems TSR doesn't wish for users to discuss these methods,
You can buy a permanent and legitimate licence to use MS Office Professional Plus 2019 for about £22 (and no recurring charges) from here:

https://www.xboxliveshop.co.uk/microsoft/office/office-2019/microsoft-office-professional-plus-2019.html?pi=googlecom

I did so only a fortnight ago.
It is perfectly legitimate. They are buying huge numbers of licences from Microsoft under its volume licensing programme, and Microsoft has to acquiesce in them selling on the licences they buy. Microsoft wants people to buy MS Office 365, of course, which involves annually recurring charges of about £70.
Of course it is legitimate. Microsoft even went to court to try to stop it but lost the judgment. The price Microsoft itself charges for a product that it is trying to push people away from is no guide to anything. it probably sells almost none. It has declared that this is the last non-subscription version of the Office line and will, in future, take its revenue from the subscrition model, forcing people to pay every year for a product that really changes very little and has few significant bugs.
You have an agenda of bad-mouthing what is a legitimate source, it seems, despite being told many times that you are wrong. In fact Microsoft introduced the subscription model as a means of getting round the problem that they cannot stop licence re-sale in Europe. You are coming across as a Microsoft shill.

https://www.itbusiness.ca/blog/yes-virginia-you-can-resell-software-licenses-but-only-in-europe/45821

The main problem with MS Office Education is that once you are no longer a student or teacher you have to pay the subscription, which is rather a lot of money. So you get it free for three years and then have to pay £70 a year for the rest of your life. MS Office 2019 users, though, pay just once. It won't be beyond the wit of Microsoft to detect long term use and demand proof of continued eligibility.

The main problem with other free tools is that they don't all include all the applications which are competent, compatible and useful, like Publisher and Outlook.
What is the relevance of this? It is fraud by the consumer and subject to the criminal law.
The company I linked to has been trading for a long time, as have others like it, without legal action from Microsoft, and is a legitimate business. I have no connection to any of them. And some of us do understand the business model.
What mistakes?

Handling stolen licences is not 'a thing'. Fraud is. There is no hint that these licences are stolen, other than in your mind, and a lot of evidence to suggest that they are not stolen. The fact that Microsoft facilitates their successful installation and goes on to service them, for instance.

Stop scare-mongering.