Office Enterprise 2007 - Activation Inefficient Procedure

[Larry L.]

I just discovered a very inefficient process for the activating Office 2007
Enterprise edition.

I had been using up until February the trial version of Office 2007. In
Feb, we received a 10-user Enterprise edition. I initially used the product
code we received, and activated the product over the Internet. All went
well, until I realized that I did not have Groove or OneNote installed.

The new Office CD does not appear to offer the opportunity to install
product that has not been installed previously. So, I had to go through the
entire installation of the Office again. No problem. Just a waste of time.

The program did not recognize my previous activation, so it asked me to
activate the product again. However, this time, it said I had to activate
via telephone instead of over the Internet.

I spoke with a very nice gentleman from Inda who read me off the
confirmation number, and I was up and running again.

To frustrate matter, I found out that every additional client computer (one
product key covers 10 clients), will require me to call India and go through
this inefficient process.

May I suggest that the activation process be improved not to require this
method. I imagine that one of Microsoft's very good programmers could write
a C++ program to adapt to the Internet activation process, and populate an
SQL 2005 database to confirm the number of allowed installs.

In the meantime, I guess we have to live with inefficiencies.

Is someone at Microsoft (or anywhere) can explain the logic behind this
change (never had this in Office 2003), I would be interested.

Thank you,

Larry L.

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[Bob Buckland ?:-\)]

Hi Larry,

From your description I'm guessing this is the MSDN non-volume license subscription edition (for test/developement use) Office 2007
product? (Volume licensed products can be installed without requiring individidual activation).

You'll need separate product keys for each of the products (i.e. the standalone apps, will have different keys than the Office 2007
suite product) and the keys are tied to machines, so you'd basically need separate keys for each machine in a non-volume license
scenario. As identifying data for you and your machine is not kept on file and is basically anonymous, putting it in a database
would be sort of the opposite of that

Each Office 2007 product (suite, standalone) has its own setup program and you should not need to reinstall one Office product to
add another, even if you've combined the CD images into a single Office 2007 Network Installation Point (oNIP2007). For deploying
Office 2007 you may want to review the MS Technet information for the Office 2007 Resource Kit (ORK2007) at
http://microsoft.com/office/ork/2007
The method and programs/tools used to setup and deploy Office 2007 are not the same as in prior versions.

If you use Add/Remove Programs in the Windows control Panel to bring up the Microsoft Office 2007 you can change the installed
feature set to cover the apps within the Suite that do not have their own setup programs. Note, that if you delete the now
mandatory \MSOCache folder after installing then any repair or feature change will, as its first step, put it back as the actual
installation occurs not from the CD or installation point, but from the \MSOCache files.

===============
I just discovered a very inefficient process for the activating Office 2007 Enterprise edition.

I had been using up until February the trial version of Office 2007. In Feb, we received a 10-user Enterprise edition. I initially
used the product code we received, and activated the product over the Internet. All went well, until I realized that I did not have
Groove or OneNote installed.

The new Office CD does not appear to offer the opportunity to install product that has not been installed previously. So, I had to
go through the entire installation of the Office again. No problem. Just a waste of time.

The program did not recognize my previous activation, so it asked me to activate the product again. However, this time, it said I
had to activate via telephone instead of over the Internet.

I spoke with a very nice gentleman from Inda who read me off the
confirmation number, and I was up and running again.

To frustrate matter, I found out that every additional client computer (one product key covers 10 clients), will require me to call
India and go through this inefficient process.

May I suggest that the activation process be improved not to require this method. I imagine that one of Microsoft's very good
programmers could write a C++ program to adapt to the Internet activation process, and populate an SQL 2005 database to confirm the
number of allowed installs.>>

In the meantime, I guess we have to live with inefficiencies.

Is someone at Microsoft (or anywhere) can explain the logic behind this change (never had this in Office 2003), I would be
interested.

Thank you,

Larry L. >>
--

Bob Buckland ?
MS Office System Products MVP

*Courtesy is not expensive and can pay big dividends*