Security issue Office activiation?

[cvj451]

I have a 3 to 4 year old PC with Office XP professional. Can't exactly
remember but I'm sure it was activation and registered when I first got the
PC all those years ago.

Now when I opened Outlook, I got a request to activiate Office. Nothing
chaged since the previous use of Outlook; no updates installed, no other
software. Word also attempted to access the internet but I blocked that,
closed Word and reopened and Word no longer wanted the internet.

The activiation only wanted to know the region where Office would be used.

So is this a security issue? It is extremely strange that I'm being asked to
activiate years after the product has already been activiated.
If not a security issue, Why is microsoft wanting this activiation? Why
don't they have a notice about it on the website? And why can't I raise
potential security issues due to unexpected and undocumented behaviour via
product support? Instead I have to go to some newsgroup.
In fact I was directed to the PC manufacturer in trying to get support. How
would they know if microsoft has suddenly decided to redo product activation?

 

[Bob Buckland ?:-\)]

Hi CVJ451,

Have you run any cleanup utilities on your PC? They've been known to delete some .bak or .dat files or registry entries that store
activation information. If that's the case Office would not 'know' it was activated.

If you click on the activation choice in the Help menu of one of the apps it should either tell you that Office is already activated
or offer you the chance to activate by internet or phone (it asks for the region to know what phone number to offer you).

If you have an OEM edition of Office (intended to be sold only with a new PC) then the support for that product is by the PC
supplier (usually at the PC supplier's request). Additional support from microsoft through http://support.microsoft.com (for phone
numbers) is available.

==============
I have a 3 to 4 year old PC with Office XP professional. Can't exactly
remember but I'm sure it was activation and registered when I first got the
PC all those years ago.

Now when I opened Outlook, I got a request to activiate Office. Nothing
chaged since the previous use of Outlook; no updates installed, no other
software. Word also attempted to access the internet but I blocked that,
closed Word and reopened and Word no longer wanted the internet.

The activiation only wanted to know the region where Office would be used.

So is this a security issue? It is extremely strange that I'm being asked to
activiate years after the product has already been activiated.
If not a security issue, Why is microsoft wanting this activiation? Why
don't they have a notice about it on the website? And why can't I raise
potential security issues due to unexpected and undocumented behaviour via
product support? Instead I have to go to some newsgroup.

In fact I was directed to the PC manufacturer in trying to get support. How
would they know if microsoft has suddenly decided to redo product activation? >>
--
Let us know if this helped you,

Bob Buckland ?
MS Office System Products MVP

Pricing and Packages for '2007 Microsoft Office System'
http://microsoft.com/office/preview