News - Office 2013 retail is “permanently assigned” to a single computer

[HEXUS]

License tweaked, since Office 2010, so you can’t migrate your copy onto a new machine.

Read more.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

MS are screwing themselves. Office might be the gold standard know,but resting on their laurels now,won't help them with the amount of competition now and in the near future.

Of course the pirates will do well as their cracked versions will be fine.

[Agent]

If your machine goes kaput or you upgrade to a new computer then you can’t reinstall this copy of Office onto the new machine, you’ll have to buy a new copy which will be then tied to that machine.

If this is true, I'd love to see it challenged in court. Given the recent EU rulings on selling second hand software, I don't think it would go in their favour.

A classic case of piracy offering a better product again though. They just don't learn.

[watercooled]

I don't think Apple could do a better job at ruining MS and their reputation if they got a CEO position with the intention of destroying the company...

[Dutchjonsey]

Im guessing theyre tying it to the motherboard, rather than the HDD, from the system crash line. Still far less than ideal though, ill be sticking with my 07 version methinks

[Domje]

A classic case of piracy offering a better product again though. They just don't learn.

This is totally true. The whole idea of not being able to reinstall it after formatting your computer is ridiculous. Everybody will just google and find a crack. :/

[krazy_olie]

Bit stupid imo, clearly trying to push 365.
For many 365 is a better deal, good for multiple systems in a household.

[brasco]

I've seen this before and it turns out you can usually just reactivate after a phone call, if not, that's totally ludicrous.

[sykobee]

Microsoft can go screw themselves. They make Apple look open and giving.

[OilSheikh]

This Steve guy is ruining Microsoft!

[kingpotnoodle]

As I read it:

Install/activate 2013 on computer A - All OK.

Computer A needs OS reinstalling - Allowed, call support if problems.

Computer A is heavily modified/repaired and reinstalled - Grey area, likely motherboard or some other hardware ID is associated with the activation key. Call support and explain, hopefully they help, in principle they should as it's mostly the same computer but that might be hard to convince them.

Computer A is decommissioned, buy computer B and attempt install - definitely not allowed.

The last scenario is probably to combat the problem of computers being handed along with software installed, the licence goes with the hardware basically.

If computer A is destroyed or scrubbed before passing on then that's a bit of an issue and I doubt it would stand up to legal challenge. Office 2013 I've tested gives 2 activation options though - key or sign-in with Live account, not sure what the impact of the 2nd is here, perhaps if you associate a retail key with a live account then it will be different?

[zaph0d]

And this is why I use Open Office, all the tools, none of the hassles or expenses

[benegerton1985]

And this is why I use Open Office, all the tools, none of the hassles or expenses

Totally agree!

[ET3D]

Looks like software is many years behind games. We already moved from one time payment to subscription based games (MMO) a while ago. Now it's time to move to the F2P model, and add an in-app store that sells fonts, menu items, the ability to create more than 10 documents over the lifetime of the software, and skins.

[Attila the Bun]

And this is why I use Open Office, all the tools, none of the hassles or expenses

+2 on this. Quite honestly I barely use MS Office at work where it is standard, And I can get a copy for about £15 for home use but don't.

[MustardCutter]

If it's anything like thier oem windows licenses, all you need is a phone and the code windows generates when it detects different hardware and to confirm that the license is installed on one working machine only when you make hardware changes to your pc. My Vista oem license got used on 2 iterations of one pc and then moved to a totally different pc when main rig became win7. Probably nothing to worry about here.