Microsoft telephone activation process

I bought a laptop for the gf off a techie on ebay a few weeks ago – running Office 2007 Enterprise under open license. Everything worked well for a month or so and then 2007 went into disabled mode. I did some tests, etc, but it wouldn't activate (resources > activate = nothing happens).

Explained this to the techie who sent me a 2007 disc and key (licensed for one installation). Intalls fine, but won't activate over internet because it's already been activated the maximum number of times. So I'll have to phone MS instead. Techie says this is perfectly ok, but I need to say the PC (with the original installation) had HDD failure and this is a new install.

Fair enough, I'm sure it's all legit, but just wondered if there's certain information I'll have to give to MS, e.g. will they NEED to know the company the license was registered to? I don't want to mess up the process and somehow have the license disabled remotely (don't even know if they do that). Techie is no longer returning any messages, so I'm hoping it'll be straightforward.

Any pointers?

TVM
SM

I'm sure it's all legit,

No – it's not. That MS Office licence is only legit for the company that bought it and it cannot be resold.

Microsoft might like to know who sold you it though. They might even reward you.

The cynical side of me (well, that would be most of me actually) suspects that he's pulled a fast one on you and probably many others.

Has the laptop got the proper MS license sticker on it or do you have the proper disk & license?

EDIT – scrub the sticker – it's not the OS you're talking about.

Still need the hologram license thing to stand any chance

Fair point, hence me asking if MS are going to expect me to know the company it's registered to.

Sounds like you may have problems calling Microsoft. You could try the hard disk crashed routine but Microsoft are really clamping down on unlicensed Office installs.

Was the laptop advertised on Ebay with Office installed?

No, I don't have the original discs. I asked him about the authenticity of it before bidding. He said it's a 6 month old machine with 2007 (OL), but no discs or sticker – he bought the machine off them for personal use and was selling it on.

Yes, it was advertised with Office 2007 Enterprise:

# Office 2007 Enterprise installed and activated, no disks supplied
# Vista Business COA on top

Like I said above, that licence belongs to the company that bought it and is NOT transferable.

You'll probably have to resort to other means of getting it to work – or pay up for a new licence
There's plenty of options available

It could be a VLK license (corporate volume license) which although non transferable would still work if the companies volume license was still in effect. If not then the license would have been stopped.

Sounds like you would have a case through Ebay!

Ok. So if I call MS and they basically say no for whatever reason, can they actually disable it remotely or somehow log I'm using it (and for any reason notify the company it's licensed to)?

At the minute I have only a few "uses" of Outlook, Word, Excel etc before it goes into disabled mode again. Hence using sleep instead of shutdown on occasion.

Cheers

The OGA updates that have recently downloaded on my Vista laptop can tell if a license is genuine or not but if you have a genuine case then normally a quick call to MS will sort it.

My advice in the short term is to leave the machine switched on until you get it sorted one way or another.

http://www.software4students.co.uk/Microsoft_Office_Enterprise_2007-details.aspx

Interesting link DruidH, but it seems I need to register with them as a parent or student (with academic proof), of which I am neither. But I guess that doesn't stop people using someone else's details …

I think you have been ripped off, as already stated the license is non transferable and no amount of calls to MS will sort it

If you got the Laptop for a good price then put it down to experience uninstall it an buy Office Basic\Standard or download OpenOffice

If you have a valid key you could change it without the need to re-install

http://www.mydigitallife.info/2007/01/12/how-to-reset-or-change-microsoft-office-2007-product-license-key-or-volume-license-key-vlk/

Another option would be to write off MS Office and just download Open Office instead

RESULT 😀 Called MS and the activation went through their automated menu system perfectly. Everything now working as it should – seems like it's genuine after all.

Thanks for your comments guys

SM