Microsoft Home User Program (HUP) - the good, the bad and the fugly

Through work, I'm lucky enough to have access to Microsoft's HUP which allows you to buy Office applications at a rock bottom price. I had picked up Office 2013 Professional Plus, Visio Pro and Project Pro, each for something like £9 :)

However, the really annoying gotcha with it is that it uses their download and activate as you use it platform which means that whilst it's great for people on narrowband who cannot download a 650MB chunk quickly, it downloads apps one at a time and then activates them automatically with the product ID key you're given after purchasing.

Call me old-school, but I really prefer a single download or a bunch of files I can save on my PC to run at my own convenience, or reinstall if something goes belly-up. Interestingly, MS offer a "buy a backup DVD" service where they'll send on in the post at a certain cost (probably less than a tenner, I didn't check), but they don't let you download the installer yourself.

However, my biggest gripe is that I now need to reinstall Windows 7 on my laptop and therefore reinstall all the applications, including Office.

So I log in with my MS account, find the order I placed, and go to do the download-install-as-you-go thing. But oh no, I can't do that anymore:

Quote:

---

We are sorry, but we are unable to complete your request.
The following problem(s) exist:
The corporate licensing agreement for the account you are attempting to access is no longer active or available. Please contact your organization's Benefit Administrator for more details.

---

Now it's true that we have a new "program code" to use for future purchases, but if I use that, then I cannot see my previous order :(

Don't despair: MS kindly provide a freephone number so I call them. After only a few minutes' wait, I end up speaking to a non-native English speaking lady who checks out my email address, order, security questions, etc, and then says "yes. I see your issue. Unfortunately, there's nothing I can do. You'll have to repurchase the software again as your existing licence is no longer valid". So I could have carried on using my already-activated copy, but cannot download it again or possibly re-use the product key I was given.

Now I know it's only £9 which is quite a saving compared to £390 or whatever Pro Plus costs nowadays, but as a matter of principle, it's just frikkin annoying. Worst still, I could kind of accept it if our company had chucked our shared Microsoft toys our of the pram, but that isn't even the case: the lady checked and our new program code gives us the same level of access, but we cannot "port" across previous purchases. They're lost forever.

I'll ask our MS benefit administrator and see what he says, but it's this kind of stuff that, out of frustration, drives me to find alternative ways of getting myself up and running again. The crazy thing is that in terms of spent money, had MS charged double (£18) to give me an automatically activated reinstallation possibility, I wouldn't have blinked at all and still think it's very good value for money. But the fact I'm now having to "buy it again" psychologically feels hardly done by.

What do you think?

I assume that company you work for let it's SA agreement expire?

We still have it, but it's now under a different number. Access the same products. I don't know if it's an annual renewal (the new one came into effect 1st Jan). But clearly there's no continuity on the software access side, even if there is a continued contract between MS and the company.