Octopus Overlords

I've been moving slow on my computer-building project, but I'm just about in a position for the boys and I to assemble our first machine. This one will be for Mother-in-Law (who lives with us), since a simple and basic setup seems the best place to start.

Now I'm turning to software. I know about buying Win10 and putting it on an 8GB stick, etc, but I'm wondering about Microsoft Office...

I'm going to be building four+ machines this year (MIL, spouse, boy 1, boy 2, maybe even one for me), and the cost of MS Office (either by subscription or full-purchase) will be really expensive if they all require a separate license.

Questions:

1) Is there an option to buy a license for older versions of Office, presumably more cheaply? Where?

2) Is it possible to install a single Office license on more than one machine at home? How many?

3) Given the cost, do most of you still use MS Office at all, or do you skip it and just Google Docs and/or something else open source? If so, what? (Thinking Word, Powerpoint, Excel substitutes mostly.)

See if your work is signed up for the Home Use Program

Holman wrote: ↑Thu May 16, 2019 10:43 am 3) Given the cost, do most of you still use MS Office at all, or do you skip it and just Google Docs and/or something else open source? If so, what? (Thinking Word, Powerpoint, Excel substitutes mostly.)

I haven't had Office products on my home computer for a long while. Google Docs/Sheets does what I need 90% of the time, and in the occasional cases I need to do something more complicated I've been able to get it done with Open Office Writer/Calc. Google Sheets in particular has come a long way in the last 5-10 years, and can even do things like pivot tables now.

Yeah, I'm thinking of going open source. My kids already do most of their writing on Google Docs.

I'll be buying at least one MS Office for my MIL, since she's comfortable with the format. I still wonder if it's possible to get an older version cheaply or if Office 2019 is all that's available.

Older MS Office versions on the cheap are unlikely since they are unsupported and no patches are available. MS tends to drive them out of legit sales since they won't support them and they represent legal risk.

Another open source option is LibreOffice (current version is 6.2). It is a circa 2010 fork from the OpenOffice code and is actually maintained. OpenOffice was discontinued in 2011.

i use LibreOffice at home and i'm sure your MIL would eventually be fine with it as well - it does everything you need it to and then some.

there's always the option of transferring the MS Office license from the old machine if you still can get ahold of the install media.

The only people I know who use MS Office do so because they require some compatibility with the work other people are doing using MS Office. Unless your MIL fits into this category I think Google's offerings, or other open source software, will do the job fine.

Holman wrote: ↑Thu May 16, 2019 10:43 am 3) Given the cost, do most of you still use MS Office at all, or do you skip it and just Google Docs and/or something else open source? If so, what? (Thinking Word, Powerpoint, Excel substitutes mostly.)

I have Office 2007 on my work laptop. It works fine. But my copy of Office 2003 did not run fine on my gaming desktop, so I am using Open Office instead. Not thrilled with that, but I do very little writing on this machine so it's OK. I occasionally need to open a doc or spreadsheet, but I never create them on this PC.

At some point I will probably subscribe to Office 365, which I believe allows you 3 devices. I have an .edu address now, so maybe I can get it on the cheap.

HUP Pricing if you're eligible:



Schools

HUP Pricing is also available for Office 19 (1 PC)

The Schools version doesn't include Outlook, which is the main thing I'd want. Have to look into the HUP thing. Wife's employer is almost surely in on that.

MIT, right?

Thanks for the info, everyone!

gameoverman wrote: ↑Thu May 16, 2019 2:44 pm The only people I know who use MS Office do so because they require some compatibility with the work other people are doing using MS Office. Unless your MIL fits into this category I think Google's offerings, or other open source software, will do the job fine.

The main thing here is that I don't want to impose an unfamiliar interface on her. She's been using MS Office since the turn of the century. She's pretty good with computers, but she's also 80 years old.

I switched to LibreOffice years ago. It's so close that most people can't tell the difference, and it's free. And not bloated. And not Microsoft.

Holman wrote: ↑Thu May 16, 2019 9:17 pm

gameoverman wrote: ↑Thu May 16, 2019 2:44 pm The only people I know who use MS Office do so because they require some compatibility with the work other people are doing using MS Office. Unless your MIL fits into this category I think Google's offerings, or other open source software, will do the job fine.

The main thing here is that I don't want to impose an unfamiliar interface on her. She's been using MS Office since the turn of the century. She's pretty good with computers, but she's also 80 years old.

This made me LOL. I just took advantage of the HUP program at work (DoD) and upgraded us to Office Pro 2019. We don't require any compatibility or anything of that nature but I guess we fall into the "turn of the century" camp and I didn't want to impose an unfamiliar interface on the wife.

I think it's 5 devices on Office 365. The only reason we still have it is the Skype minutes that come with the subscription - pretty much pays for itself.

We mostly use Google Docs at home these days. After 9 years of expecting my team to be ambassadors for the Google suite, just yesterday the company announced that Google is the only corporate-sanctioned productivity suite and MS Office will only be approved if there are customer requirements or the need to use plug-ins compatible only with MS Office.

Jeff V wrote: ↑Fri May 17, 2019 9:22 am I think it's 5 devices on Office 365.

Cropping fail previously on my part. Bottom of the image.

Jeff V wrote: ↑Fri May 17, 2019 9:22 am
We mostly use Google Docs at home these days. After 9 years of expecting my team to be ambassadors for the Google suite, just yesterday the company announced that Google is the only corporate-sanctioned productivity suite and MS Office will only be approved if there are customer requirements or the need to use plug-ins compatible only with MS Office.

my previous job made the 'heroic and visionary' decision of dumping Google Suite for ... Microsoft O365.

We are all-in on Google. At one time anyway (before the company was broken up) we were their largest enterprise customer. For practical purposes, Google is free while Microsoft is not. With the company feverishly seeking to cut expense everywhere they can, this is a rather large one. I do have a lot users, however, that require SAP or Essbase plug-ins (among others) and they can't use Google Docs. I've been using it for years though -- personally and in business. I don't do anything terribly complicated, and therefore don't need to pay for something needlessly.

Jeff V wrote: ↑Fri May 17, 2019 4:58 pm We are all-in on Google. At one time anyway (before the company was broken up) we were their largest enterprise customer. For practical purposes, Google is free while Microsoft is not.

Does Google claim that the contents of your documents and spreadsheets are private? If I were a large enterprise I would be concerned about what they're collecting.

Kraken wrote: ↑Sat May 18, 2019 12:04 am

Jeff V wrote: ↑Fri May 17, 2019 4:58 pm We are all-in on Google. At one time anyway (before the company was broken up) we were their largest enterprise customer. For practical purposes, Google is free while Microsoft is not.

Does Google claim that the contents of your documents and spreadsheets are private? If I were a large enterprise I would be concerned about what they're collecting.

Since we have an entire department dedicated to security and privacy, I'm pretty sure they worked that out long ago. At the time, our CSO was one of the most eminent in the field (he died suddenly 2 years ago).

I'll just put in my two cents. I've used Google Docs for years, but my wife wanted Microsoft Office since she is familiar with it for herself and her organization. Since I'm the tech guy I got the Office 365 subscription a couple of years ago and manage the licenses and machines. So far it's been smooth sailing. My wife is a Word power user and she's very happy with how Office works for her. I use Word and Excel for my activities with her and I'm also set up with OneDrive and OneNote, both of which I use a lot.

I've previously used Open Office and then Libre Office. They were fine, but MS Office products are more familiar to our volunteers so we go with those. Also the Win10 images we have loaded on our laptops have the Office Mobile apps already installed.

This is probably going to be easy, maybe even automatic, but I'm asking because I can't afford to screw it up: When installing my new copy of MS Office 2019 over my old Office 2007, how do I make the new Office use the old Office's Outlook.pst file? I want all of my email, folders, contacts, account setups, etc. to carry forward effortlessly and by default. I don't want to start a new pst file and rebuild from scratch.

Tried googling the answer and got buried in links about the many, many different versions of Office out there. I have been putting off the upgrade for weeks because I don't want to have to reconfigure all of my accounts, rebuild my folders, etc. Figured somebody here probably just knows.

Kraken wrote: ↑Sun Aug 04, 2019 2:09 pm This is probably going to be easy, maybe even automatic, but I'm asking because I can't afford to screw it up: When installing my new copy of MS Office 2019 over my old Office 2007, how do I make the new Office use the old Office's Outlook.pst file? I want all of my email, folders, contacts, account setups, etc. to carry forward effortlessly and by default. I don't want to start a new pst file and rebuild from scratch.

Tried googling the answer and got buried in links about the many, many different versions of Office out there. I have been putting off the upgrade for weeks because I don't want to have to reconfigure all of my accounts, rebuild my folders, etc. Figured somebody here probably just knows.

The installation process may upgrade the current PST file, but there are probably some changes to the file structure in the intervening years that may prevent it. However, you can setup Outlook with a new file and then attach the old PST (under the Data Files section of the mail app in Control Panel). You should be able to drag your information (contacts, stored mail, folders, calendar events) from the old PST to the new. Mail accounts/logins would still have to be setup individually unfortunately.

Make a backup before giving it a go.

...and set aside an afternoon. Just in case.

To my complete unsurprise, I can't make Outlook 2019 open the .pst file from 2007. I can navigate to it and tell it to open, and I don't get any error messages, but nothing happens. At one point it told me it was already using that profile; funny how I can't see any of the folders or messages.

Maybe it's because Outlook insisted on setting up three of my five email accounts as IMAP instead of POP3, which is less than ideal (I don't like having all those separate folders) but I can live with it. I got errors when I tried to create them as POP3, and of course the error messages don't tell you which setting is the culprit. I wouldn't mind starting over if I could only bring in some of my archived email from the old one. I can't delete the old Office 2007 install (and use it on my other machine) until I'm sure I don't need any of my old messages, because old Outlook is apparently the only way to open old Outlook database. Can I install 2007 on both machines as long as I never use them simultaneously?

I did end up needing several hours and I still haven't got things working the way I want them. At least Word and Excel didn't give me any problems.

Odd. I haven't had any problems with adding old PST files to new Outlook. The folder group should be called "Outlook Data File" in the left column.

Biyobi wrote: ↑Mon Aug 12, 2019 3:29 pm Odd. I haven't had any problems with adding old PST files to new Outlook. The folder group should be called "Outlook Data File" in the left column.

Ahh, a group I hadn't noticed called "Personal Folders" has my old Inbox and Sent Items, but none of the many folders I had under my inbox are visible. I don't need the many remnants of Curio City, but two that I particularly want, the Archived and Blue Hills folders, aren't there. At least, not visibly. Presumably the data must be there since it's displaying the top-level folders from the old .pst file...I just need to figure out how to see the nested subfolders.

...and I found my folders under a nearly-invisible clear arrow by the inbox folder. Everything's where it should be.

Now the question is: Can I simply uninstall Office 2007 without losing the old pst file, or otherwise pooching my new Office 2019 install?

Kraken wrote: ↑Mon Aug 12, 2019 10:24 pm ...and I found my folders under a nearly-invisible clear arrow by the inbox folder. Everything's where it should be.

Now the question is: Can I simply uninstall Office 2007 without losing the old pst file, or otherwise pooching my new Office 2019 install?

Uninstalling office will not delete any .pst files. .pst files are essentially tiny database files that stand independent of the program and are not part of the program. At least since Outlook 2010 by default Outlook even creates them in your my documents folder (it moved them from one place to another but always in my documents) Previous 2010, I've seen .pst file default to weird places like hiding in the hidden appdata folder.

LordMortis wrote: ↑Tue Aug 13, 2019 3:55 pm

Kraken wrote: ↑Mon Aug 12, 2019 10:24 pm ...and I found my folders under a nearly-invisible clear arrow by the inbox folder. Everything's where it should be.

Now the question is: Can I simply uninstall Office 2007 without losing the old pst file, or otherwise pooching my new Office 2019 install?

Uninstalling office will not delete any .pst files. .pst files are essentially tiny database files that stand independent of the program and are not part of the program. At least since Outlook 2010 by default Outlook even creates them in your my documents folder (it moved them from one place to another but always in my documents) Previous 2010, I've seen .pst file default to weird places like hiding in the hidden appdata folder.

Yeah, mine's in users/default/appdata/local/microsoft/outlook (I think). The new one seems to be in onedrive/documents. So the new 2019 install doesn't share files with the old 2007 install? Now that I've got everything set up, I don't want to break anything...but I do want to get the disk space back.

Kraken wrote: ↑Tue Aug 13, 2019 4:15 pm Yeah, mine's in users/default/appdata/local/microsoft/outlook (I think). The new one seems to be in onedrive/documents. So the new 2019 install doesn't share files with the old 2007 install? Now that I've got everything set up, I don't want to break anything...but I do want to get the disk space back.

As far as I knew Windows would not let you have two concurrent versions of MS Office installed on the same machine. So you are already out of my depth. This must be some sort of O365 VooDoo, which I don't trust because I don't understand.

LordMortis wrote: ↑Tue Aug 13, 2019 4:18 pm

Kraken wrote: ↑Tue Aug 13, 2019 4:15 pm Yeah, mine's in users/default/appdata/local/microsoft/outlook (I think). The new one seems to be in onedrive/documents. So the new 2019 install doesn't share files with the old 2007 install? Now that I've got everything set up, I don't want to break anything...but I do want to get the disk space back.

As far as I knew Windows would not let you have two concurrent versions of MS Office installed on the same machine. So you are already out of my depth. This must be some sort of O365 VooDoo, which I don't trust because I don't understand.

Well, I do have two fully functional versions of Office (not 365) on the same laptop. I guess I should poke around in my folders to see if they look like completely separate installs. I'm just concerned that if they share any DLLs, uninstalling 07 might cripple 19. I want to install 07 on my other machine.

Kraken wrote: ↑Wed Aug 14, 2019 12:11 am Well, I do have two fully functional versions of Office (not 365) on the same laptop. I guess I should poke around in my folders to see if they look like completely separate installs. I'm just concerned that if they share any DLLs, uninstalling 07 might cripple 19. I want to install 07 on my other machine.

They will be separate installs. One will be in like programfiles(86)\office\12 or some such thing for such an old version and the other will be in programfiles\office\16 for some such thing for a new version. But historically is you try to install two versions on one machine you would get a message akin to "another version of microsoft office is already running on this computer." or "installation has detected an error and is rolling back changes" or some such thing. I'm Pavloved into having to uninstall trial versions of Office or unpegging O365 Home Trial to get our corporate install to work. Oh, and unpegging software is puppies. MS Strore and built in software you can't use and you can't get rid of. That's bad juju.

Here's something annoying: After I uninstalled Office 2007 I started getting this popup at semi-regular intervals: "There is no email program associated to perform the requested action. Please install an email program or, if one is already installed, create an association in the Default Programs control panel."

I assigned "Outlook" for email, but the popup keeps coming. I changed it to "Mail (Recommended for Windows 10)." Still getting the popup. Changed it back to Outlook. Outlook 2019 is working fine and I'm having no email issues. How can I find out what program is kicking up that warning and make it stop?

Kraken wrote: ↑Thu Sep 05, 2019 1:12 pm Here's something annoying: After I uninstalled Office 2007 I started getting this popup at semi-regular intervals: "There is no email program associated to perform the requested action. Please install an email program or, if one is already installed, create an association in the Default Programs control panel."

I assigned "Outlook" for email, but the popup keeps coming. I changed it to "Mail (Recommended for Windows 10)." Still getting the popup. Changed it back to Outlook. Outlook 2019 is working fine and I'm having no email issues. How can I find out what program is kicking up that warning and make it stop?

Try this.

Thanks A-B, I'll try that tomorrow or over the weekend. I am afraid of the registry and this machine is my money-maker, so I can't risk perturbing things during the workweek. Pretty funny that Outlook is the one complaining about no email client, though.

Kraken wrote: ↑Thu Sep 05, 2019 1:12 pm Here's something annoying: After I uninstalled Office 2007 I started getting this popup at semi-regular intervals: "There is no email program associated to perform the requested action. Please install an email program or, if one is already installed, create an association in the Default Programs control panel."

I assigned "Outlook" for email, but the popup keeps coming. I changed it to "Mail (Recommended for Windows 10)." Still getting the popup. Changed it back to Outlook. Outlook 2019 is working fine and I'm having no email issues. How can I find out what program is kicking up that warning and make it stop?

Careful the with AB link. It's old. If you regedit make sure to back up your registry and know how to restore it before you go in and play.

In Windows you have a default programs settings that's a bit different than it was in 10.

You already changed default email app to outlook but you might want to poke around in the options below. For instance, look for outlook in Set Defualts by App. I want to say it should say

EML File
MIAL
URL:msunitore-email
URL:outlookmail

If it has more, question what.
If it has less, I think question what, but I'm not sure

There are multiple ways to call up mail so people can do things like have you click on a hyperlink, open a new mail and fill stuff in.

also Cortana can break a lot of stuff. If anyone says fuck with her in the registry or through powershell, don't. They often aren't as smart as they think they are and you're not knowledgeable enough to if they are (or maybe you are.... I'm not...)

https://www.kapilarya.com/there-is-no-e ... windows-10

On Windows 10, go to Settings, Cortana, Permissions & History, Manage the information Cortana can access from this device. Turn off Contact, email, calendar & communications history.

This how you have to deal with Cortana problems which will change with Windows updates and gimping her through other means might have have.... unintended consequences on update.

This only started when I uninstalled Office 2007 using the Windows control panel interface. It's like doing that convinced Outlook that it doesn't exist anymore.

I am a real pussy about the registry, so editing that will be my last resort. First I'll see what MS has by way of repair tools.

LordMortis wrote: ↑Fri Sep 06, 2019 4:45 pm You already changed default email app to outlook but you might want to poke around in the options below. For instance, look for outlook in Set Defualts by App. I want to say it should say

EML File
MIAL
URL:msunitore-email
URL:outlookmail

If it has more, question what.
If it has less, I think question what, but I'm not sure

I have no idea what you just said there. Can you dumb it down for me?