Office 2007 SB fails validation & still says 'non-commercial use'?

[Scotch]

I have 3 issues which I think are related. My Lenovo laptop (Windows XP SP2)
came earlier this year pre-installed with Office 2007 Small Business which I
purchased from the re-seller, who put it on the machine before shipping it
and supplied me with the accompanying genuine Office SB 2007 product key.
Since then I've also now obtained the free Office 2007 Small Business back-up
disks from Microsoft Europe. I've been happily using the Office 2007
software for around 2 months now, but...

1st issue) Why do the title bars of Word, Excel etc still carry the wording
"non-commercial use", as if not recognising that I've got the business
version of the software?
2nd issue) In 'add/remove programs' of the Control Panel, why is the version
of Office still given as 'Home & Student 2007'?
3rd issue) Today I wanted to download from Microsoft's web site the new
add-in which allows me to convert Word files to pdf. The site first requires
to automatically validate my version of Office 2007, but the validation fails
and I get these details on the failure:

2007 Microsoft Office system
The product(s) listed above completed validation. However, as a result of
the failed or incomplete validation(s) listed below, this computer is not
eligible for the benefits of genuine Office. Remove the application(s) that
failed or could not complete validation and run the validation tool again.

Microsoft Office Home and Student 2007:

Validation Failed
No valid Office key was detected. This is a strong indication that the
Office product installed is not genuine

In other words, it seems to recognise that my copy of Office is genuine but
suggests that an underlying version of Office Home & Student is also present
with no genuine product key.

All this is very frustrating and I've wasted hours on it today trying to
find answers. I need the pdf converter quite urgently but can't get through
to it because of the validation failure. I tried 'converting' and
'repairing' the Office SB software using the back-up disks. These ran
smoothly, but they made no difference to the issues above.

Can anyone help please?

 

[Beth Melton]

Unfortunately, what you are experiencing is a fairly common issue with
pre-installed (OEM) software. Some companies think that providing you with
the components of a suite is actually providing you with the and that's not
the case. It only causes you, the consumer, problems. (Which is why I don't
purchase OEM software.)

Since the Home and Student edition comes with Word, Excel, and PPT, it
wouldn't surprise me if they installed those (because they probably have an
image for the Home and Student suite) and then once the computer had the
"standard" installation, installed Outlook, Accounting and Publisher later.
So what you have is a mixed installation - some from Home and Student and
the rest from Small Business.)

If you have your installation CDs for Office 2007 Small Business then I'd
uninstall the Home and Student suite and then reinstall Office 2007 Small
Business.

Please post all follow-up questions to the newsgroup. Requests for
assistance by email can not be acknowledged.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Beth Melton
Microsoft Office MVP

Co-author of Word 2007 Inside Out:
http://www.microsoft.com/MSPress/books/9801.aspx#AboutTheBook

Word FAQ: http://mvps.org/word
TechTrax eZine: http://mousetrax.com/techtrax/
MVP FAQ site: http://mvps.org/