Office 2007 - Upgrade Detection from (not installed) Office XP.

[Drinky]

Can anyone help me with the following issue as no-one at Microsoft that I
have had contact with seems to know the answer.

1. I recently purchased a new laptop with Vista Business as the OS and,
rather than installing my copy of Office XP Standard, I downloaded the free
trial of Office Small Business 2007 to check it out.
2. I've now decided that I want to continue with the Office Small
Business 2007.
3. As I have my copy of Office XP, I obviously only want to purchase the
Upgrade (rather than the full version).

I therefore want to know the procedure that I need to follow in order to
'activate' the trial version of Office Small Business 2007 with an upgrade
license key - but without having the version of Office XP installed first.

Is it as simple as inputting the upgrade license key and directing the
software to look at the CD drive for the Office XP installation media to
verify the upgrade?

Or, do I have to jump through hoops and uninstall the trail version of 2007,
install the Office XP and reconfigure all of my accounts, get it working with
the .pst and .ost files, then install the 2007 upgrade from the CD? As we
have 8 machines to consider, I would like to avoid this at all costs.

Any help would be much appreciated as a couple of my senior colleageus are
suggesting that we should bite the bullet and move to OpenOffice.

Mark Drinkwater

 

[DL]

You will probably find it cheaper to purchase a cd from eg amazon.com rather
than a key from MS.
If you do so uninstall any trial version, before loading from cd, and have
your Oxp cd ready to point to when it complains

Although with 8 PC's there maybe some volume licence applicable

 

[Bob Buckland ?:-\)]

Hi Mark,

As D.L., points out Office upgrades will look for a qualifying product, either a CD or an installed copy. Installing an upgrade
basically cancels the use of the license for Office XP (i.e. you don't gain a 'new' 2007 license using an upgrade package, only if
you purchase a 'full package product'.

MS Open volume licensing starts at 5 copies and not all 5 copies need to be of Office. http://microsoft.com/licensing .

=============
Can anyone help me with the following issue as no-one at Microsoft that I
have had contact with seems to know the answer.

1. I recently purchased a new laptop with Vista Business as the OS and,
rather than installing my copy of Office XP Standard, I downloaded the free
trial of Office Small Business 2007 to check it out.
2. I've now decided that I want to continue with the Office Small
Business 2007.
3. As I have my copy of Office XP, I obviously only want to purchase the
Upgrade (rather than the full version).

I therefore want to know the procedure that I need to follow in order to
'activate' the trial version of Office Small Business 2007 with an upgrade
license key - but without having the version of Office XP installed first.

Is it as simple as inputting the upgrade license key and directing the
software to look at the CD drive for the Office XP installation media to
verify the upgrade?

Or, do I have to jump through hoops and uninstall the trail version of 2007,
install the Office XP and reconfigure all of my accounts, get it working with
the .pst and .ost files, then install the 2007 upgrade from the CD? As we
have 8 machines to consider, I would like to avoid this at all costs.

Any help would be much appreciated as a couple of my senior colleageus are
suggesting that we should bite the bullet and move to OpenOffice.

Mark Drinkwater>>
--

Bob Buckland ?
MS Office System Products MVP

*Courtesy is not expensive and can pay big dividends*