Office Mac 2008 Home key limit

[NESteve]

Home & Student Edition of Office 2008 comes with 3 install keys. I took this
to mean that I could use it on 3 different machines, so I did install on 3
machines in my home (using different key on each, of course). But no Office
program will launch if any Office app is running on any other machine,
complaining that I'm exceeding my license. Is this how it's supposed to
work? If you can run only one copy at a time, why do you need a different
key for each copy?

 

[JE McGimpsey]

Home & Student Edition of Office 2008 comes with 3 install keys. I took this
to mean that I could use it on 3 different machines, so I did install on 3
machines in my home (using different key on each, of course). But no Office
program will launch if any Office app is running on any other machine,
complaining that I'm exceeding my license. Is this how it's supposed to
work? If you can run only one copy at a time, why do you need a different
key for each copy?

If you used three different keys, you should be good to go.

Your getting the error message indicates that the same key was used on
multiple machines.

Try reinstalling the keys (see "Remove and reenter the Office 2008
product key" in Office application Help)

 

[NESteve]

If you used three different keys, you should be good to go.

Operative word there is "should".

Your getting the error message indicates that the same key was used on
multiple machines.

On the contrary, it indicates that Office erroneously thinks the same key
was used on multiple machines. Before I installed anything, I wrote the name
of each machine under the key with which it was to be installed, then I
installed on all three machines accordingly. And no one else has had access
to the installer.

Perhaps I should mention that everyone's home directory is on a single
machine running Leopard Server; one of the installations is also on the
Leopard Server machine. The other two installations are on machines running
Leopard as clients of the server. One thought that has occurred to me is
that, even when someone is running on one of the other machines, Office uses
the key installed on the server since that's where the user's home directory
is. Whether a bug or intended behavior, that sounds to me like an idiotic
move on Microsoft's part, but it's the only reason I can think of for it to
insist that a key is used in more than one machine.

I have nine Macs in the house. Four of them belong to my employer, and
those four have Office 2008 installed using my employer's company-wide
license key. Of the five Macs that belong to the family, three have Office
2008 Home & Student while the other two have old installs of Office X. The
only machines causing or being affected by this problem are the three on
which O2008H&S is installed.

 

[JE McGimpsey]

Perhaps I should mention that everyone's home directory is on a single
machine running Leopard Server; one of the installations is also on the
Leopard Server machine. The other two installations are on machines running
Leopard as clients of the server. One thought that has occurred to me is
that, even when someone is running on one of the other machines, Office uses
the key installed on the server since that's where the user's home directory
is. Whether a bug or intended behavior, that sounds to me like an idiotic
move on Microsoft's part, but it's the only reason I can think of for it to
insist that a key is used in more than one machine.

Product IDs are stored in both the

HD:Applications:Microsoft Office 2008:Office:OfficePID.plist

file and the

~:Library:Microsoft:Office 2008:Microsoft Office 2008 settings.plist

file. I don't know which one takes precedence if they conflict, and I
don't have the ability to replicate the configuration.

As a test, I suppose you could, with all local Office apps closed, blow
away the settings file in the home directory and then start a local
Office app.