HOw do I find a product key for Microsoft Office 2003 standard edition for students and teachers?

January 30, 2006 3:38 PM

I guess when I purchased my laptop on Sept. 2005, I got a trial version of Microsoft Office. I did not know this till it showed up on my screen. I did not know what to do but I used a product key from the internet. It worked but soon after it said I had to register it. I never did and says the key does not work!! What do I do, I need Office asap.

Is there a website to find it. Or something I can do?

posted by Gabe014 to computers & internet (7 comments total)

Open Office is a perfectly viable Office replacement that is free and has no problems handling Word, Excel, PowerPoint and other MS related documents.

Otherwise, I'd suggest ponying up the money if you really want MS Office. After all, it was a trial version.
posted by furtive at 3:45 PM on January 30, 2006

What do you mean, you "used a product key from the internet"? If that means that you used a key that you didn't pay for, then that's a problem. If you need Office (and can't use Open Office), then you should pay for a proper license.
posted by aberrant at 3:50 PM on January 30, 2006

Open office is your best (free) bet. Otherwise you're going to have to pay, as furtive said.

You might try complaining to the place that sold you the laptop, but unless you can get them to believe you were mislead in the sales pitch, you're probably out of luck.
posted by tiamat at 3:53 PM on January 30, 2006

You could look through the paperwork that came with your laptop, and see if the product key is there.

Otherwise, Open Office is wonderful. I have Word, Excel, etc. at work, and still use Open Office there.
posted by QIbHom at 4:01 PM on January 30, 2006

Here are the instructions for converting the trial version to a fully licensed version. Here's a FAQ about trial versions of Office.

It looks like you can do the whole thing online, so it should be pretty quick.

If the software never explicitly told you that it was a trial version, you might have the product key in the documentation that came with the computer, as QIbHom suggests.
posted by mr_roboto at 4:07 PM on January 30, 2006

Either find your original product key, call and see if Microsoft will help you out, buy Office, or use OpenOffice (or AbiWord, or 602PC, etc.).

Not a big Microsoft fan here, but careful with OpenOffice. I've been working on a document for several months in Word, and sure enough OO will open it, but the formatting stinks. I messed with it for a while trying to make it work but I recommend that if you're modifying Word docs in OO, don't expect Word users to be thrilled with modifications you make.

This behavior varies depending on exactly how you format things, etc., so YMMV. Doesn't hurt to try it out (it's free), but test on various documents.

Other options: if you're a student, an academic copy of Office is relatively cheap, if you're building a PC you can get an OEM copy cheaper than normal retail (you usually have to buy it with a motherboard or cpu, etc.).
posted by mumeishi at 4:14 PM on January 30, 2006

I didn't notice the extra info in the post title: a full license for the "students and teachers" edition should run you about $150.
posted by mr_roboto at 4:25 PM on January 30, 2006