Has anyone bought a new computer with the 60 day trial on it, and used the activation wizard to activate it?
What I want to know is, what happens at the end of the trial?
Do you have to buy the whole package (very expensive) or can you buy one of the lesser versions?
For example: Are you offered online any of the versions like "Home and Student". (which just has WORD, EXCEL, P Point and One note?
Or are you advised to go off and buy a packaged version to obtain a licence key?

What happens?

Once the trial version is expired, you can either purchase the software or uninstall it from the computer. If you want to purchase the product, contact Microsoft to obtain a Product Key.

Supreet, you're missing the point. I believe she wants to know if she HAS to buy the version that the trial is of (Professional Plus, Ultimate, etc) or if she can downgrade/upgrade to a different version, or if she has to go to the store.

I believe they actually give you the option to put in your CD-Key from a retail version, and it will enable/disable certain applications, depending on what your CD-Key is. It can read the CD-Key and tell which version of Office it's for. So you probably would have to head to the store... but you'll never have to actually use that disc. You'll just need the product key.

Hffffff. I'm sorry, I don't know what's happening to me I guess too much work.

Jules,

If you haven't tried it, and since you're apparently in the trial frame of mind, you might give OpenOffice a shot.

It's freeware, open-source, very well supported, has an active user community, and provides most all of the functionality of Microsoft Office.



http://www.openoffice.org/

Thanks for the imput folks.
Still, I would like to hear from someone who has actually experienced the 60 day trial coming to an end, and what they did then.
What I currently do for the computers I sell that come pre-loaded with MS Office 2007 Professional, is that I uninstall it and then install a more reasonably priced version. I do this even before the customer takes possession.
And, just so you know, one has to uninstall the trial first, and then install the purchased software second. If you do it in the reverse order then the lesser version ends up not working properly.
I do think that this is a marketing ploy that is a bit agressive, and a bit misleading.
Other folk who have bought elsewhere have told me that when they purchased that they were told - Yes, Office is on the computer - and then they are in for a big shock after 60 days when they find out that they have to fork out some more money.
The full professional version here is about $700, while the Home and Student version is about $200.

Yes John, I am aware of the availability of Open Office.
However if you receive attachments say in WORD then you have to create a file association with it to open with open office.

Jules said:

I guess I'm not thinking clearly today...is that a significant problem?

It is John, if you are a low end user and don't know how to create file associations.

I guess the problem continues to be one of people unwilling to use the built-in help facilities of many programs. But, I realize that sometimes they don't know what to ask about, which does require a bit more research work.

However, managing file associations information is included in the OO help feature.

In fact, just typing 'file' in the Search Term field instantly brings file association management up as the very first topic. It's clearly something OO folks anticipated being a frequent user need.

Even here on HWA it continues to amaze me that people don't even try first using the HWA search tool, nor even Google before asking about something. It's an incredibly simple thing to do. It's like they just want others to do virtually all the work for them. I guess I'm hard-nosed, but that generally irritates me.

I think there's a huge difference between simply being a neophyte user and being a neophyte user unwilling to even try researching to solve a problem. /rant

Just came across "Compare Office" suite today.
http://www.comparesoft.com/index.php

An 'open source" suite (that you have to pay for to get the installation disk).
Offices in San Diego.
Anyone use it?

never heard of it, i dont like the look for the website personally though

Jules said:
I think their price-point is too high to be competitive. While cheaper than MS Office, I think their target customer base will see the primary competitor is OpenOffice. $49.95 or $59.95 would be more realistic.