Office 365 question
February 3, 2021 10:40 AM Subscribe
A few years ago, I purchased the home edition of Office. NOT Office 365. Then a couple of years ago I joined a firm that uses 365 subscription.
This firm pays for my license to use 365. But I had Office installed prior to joining the firm. My question: what will happen to my Office app when I leave the firm in the next couple of years and they no longer provide me with an active account? I don't want to subscribe to 365 individually. I don't need it. Using the Office app now requires a login. So this subscription has swallowed my apps.
No one I have asked seems to know what will happen when my status is no longer active and what I will need to do to have a valid home Office edition after I leave.
Thanks
This firm pays for my license to use 365. But I had Office installed prior to joining the firm. My question: what will happen to my Office app when I leave the firm in the next couple of years and they no longer provide me with an active account? I don't want to subscribe to 365 individually. I don't need it. Using the Office app now requires a login. So this subscription has swallowed my apps.
No one I have asked seems to know what will happen when my status is no longer active and what I will need to do to have a valid home Office edition after I leave.
Thanks
Ugh - I have had the same thing - ultimately I had to re-install.
(Even more fun, trying to juggle various 365 accounts/subscriptions between multiple clients - "InPrivate" mode works for the browser, but not for Office or Teams or...)
posted by rozcakj at 10:51 AM on February 3, 2021
(Even more fun, trying to juggle various 365 accounts/subscriptions between multiple clients - "InPrivate" mode works for the browser, but not for Office or Teams or...)
posted by rozcakj at 10:51 AM on February 3, 2021
Serious advice not just reflexive MS bashing: have you considered whether or not you actually need MS Office at your home?
I find that at least 95% of users can get along just fine using Google's online office software or LibreOffice if they must.
The Google suite doesn't offer most of the features of MS Office, but most users never use those features. MS Office is crammed with stuff that the average person never touches and is just there so it makes little checkmark on thier marketing materials.
I thought I needed Office, and I actually have a copy of MS Office Home on my PC. I haven't used it in over five years.
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On topic, when you leave you'll need to remove Office 365 and install Office Home. If that's happening in a couple of years you'll likely be reinstalling Windows anyway so it shouldn't be a big deal.
posted by sotonohito at 11:04 AM on February 3, 2021
I find that at least 95% of users can get along just fine using Google's online office software or LibreOffice if they must.
The Google suite doesn't offer most of the features of MS Office, but most users never use those features. MS Office is crammed with stuff that the average person never touches and is just there so it makes little checkmark on thier marketing materials.
I thought I needed Office, and I actually have a copy of MS Office Home on my PC. I haven't used it in over five years.
***********
On topic, when you leave you'll need to remove Office 365 and install Office Home. If that's happening in a couple of years you'll likely be reinstalling Windows anyway so it shouldn't be a big deal.
posted by sotonohito at 11:04 AM on February 3, 2021
Which version of Office did you purchase? It may no longer be supported, which is what happened to my personal Office license. In that case, you'd just go from having an active license for a supported product (Office 365) to having no active license for any supported product. If your licensed product is still active, then you'd just have to log out of Office 365 through your work account and change your Office product key (Windows) or run the license removal tool and reactivate with your license key (Mac).
NB if you work for any organization that uses Office 365 you are probably going to be eligible for a discounted personal license through the inadequately promoted Microsoft Home Use Program. I didn't want to have to pay for Office 365 either, but $70/year for all the devices my wife and I have was honestly a better deal than a one-time, one-computer license. The discounted cost of an individual license of $49/year is pretty much the same as spending $150 on a one time purchase every three years in order to keep up with supported versions.
posted by fedward at 11:06 AM on February 3, 2021 [2 favorites]
NB if you work for any organization that uses Office 365 you are probably going to be eligible for a discounted personal license through the inadequately promoted Microsoft Home Use Program. I didn't want to have to pay for Office 365 either, but $70/year for all the devices my wife and I have was honestly a better deal than a one-time, one-computer license. The discounted cost of an individual license of $49/year is pretty much the same as spending $150 on a one time purchase every three years in order to keep up with supported versions.
posted by fedward at 11:06 AM on February 3, 2021 [2 favorites]
Others have covered the main points but I just wanted to add that one thing to check is whether your firm is paying annually (they probably are). When I left my previous org, they continued my subscription until the end of the period and then I had to get another one (I continued with office 365 because I need Office and I need more than one license), but it wasn't like an immediate loss of access. YMMV.
posted by sm1tten at 2:28 PM on February 3, 2021
posted by sm1tten at 2:28 PM on February 3, 2021
Bonus annoyance to be aware of - you can't have an O365 version and a non-O365 version (say 2016) installed at the same time.
This tends to impact Visio and Project which are often licensed separately. So while I have a work O365 account, and a personal license for 2016 which includes Visio, I can't install Visio while I have O365 installed. (The solution is downloading a Windows 10 VM every few months when I want to use Visio.)
posted by Suspicious Ninja at 2:32 PM on February 3, 2021 [1 favorite]
This tends to impact Visio and Project which are often licensed separately. So while I have a work O365 account, and a personal license for 2016 which includes Visio, I can't install Visio while I have O365 installed. (The solution is downloading a Windows 10 VM every few months when I want to use Visio.)
posted by Suspicious Ninja at 2:32 PM on February 3, 2021 [1 favorite]
the inadequately promoted Microsoft Home Use Program
is quite likely what's already in use here ("This firm pays for my license to use 365"). MS licensing under the HUP only covers current employees of HUP-eligible organizations so HUP licensing ends when employment does.
Removing an existing instance of any edition of Office and re-installing a separate instance for which you have a retail license is usually a pretty straightforward exercise, though often quite slow. Allocate at least half an hour.
If you'd like to try out LibreOffice, the easiest way to install it on a Windows box is using a Ninite-packaged installer. This can be re-run at any time to install updates, too.
posted by flabdablet at 5:38 PM on February 3, 2021
is quite likely what's already in use here ("This firm pays for my license to use 365"). MS licensing under the HUP only covers current employees of HUP-eligible organizations so HUP licensing ends when employment does.
Removing an existing instance of any edition of Office and re-installing a separate instance for which you have a retail license is usually a pretty straightforward exercise, though often quite slow. Allocate at least half an hour.
If you'd like to try out LibreOffice, the easiest way to install it on a Windows box is using a Ninite-packaged installer. This can be re-run at any time to install updates, too.
posted by flabdablet at 5:38 PM on February 3, 2021
A while back, I bought an old edition of Office off of eBay, because I found that the OpenOffice and LibreOffice word processors weren't quite as good as Word for my work purposes (I'm supposed to format certain documents in a very particular way). I'm probably going to do that again soon, since the version of Office I have now recently stopped being supported.
posted by Artifice_Eternity at 9:12 PM on February 3, 2021
posted by Artifice_Eternity at 9:12 PM on February 3, 2021
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by hydra77 at 10:49 AM on February 3, 2021 [4 favorites]