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So I have a (genuine) copy of Office '97 on my Windows 7 Laptop.

Whereas before I could happily create documents without registering the software, now it seems word won't let me do anything short of opening old files, and even then I still can't edit them!

Suggestions please!

Contact Microsoft.

Uh... you have a genuine copy, sure, but do you have a license to use it on multiple computers?
Be careful before you contact Microsoft, they'll nail you on that sort of thing.

I know a few early-Office afficionados, and have heard of nothing but trouble since XP. A quick google search suggests that installing '97 on Windows7 conflicts with the User Account Control service, which is like a turd on top of a turd.

Just get OpenOffice.org

Opemoffice eh?

On my way skip!

And it's whatever Dell saw fit to install on my laptop sadly!

Are you sure it's Office 97? I can't remember if the next version implimented it or it started with Office 2003, that they got rid of the old style serial number approach. I know with Office 97 you could merrily use the same serial number with any PC. There were versions of Office 2003 & 2007 that were what they called "blue" versions, you had a generic license key you could use, but Microsoft brought out a sneaky update that killed that, about 8 - 10 months ago I think. Everytime you loaded it up you'd get nagged about it not being a legit copy, then after about 3 months it stopped working.

I also know that a lot of laptops come with a demo version of Office, your files aren't being opened by that are they? If so it could be that, as the demo has a 30 or 60 day trial period then stops you from doing anything with it.

Sounds about right Wolfstan.

Grabbing Open Office now anyways. I has Posters to design!

Tricksy buggers Microsoft The word "design" and OpenOffice / Office should never be used in the same sentence... professional pride

Wolfstan wrote:Are you sure it's Office 97? I can't remember if the next version implimented it or it started with Office 2003, that they got rid of the old style serial number approach. I know with Office 97 you could merrily use the same serial number with any PC. There were versions of Office 2003 & 2007 that were what they called "blue" versions, you had a generic license key you could use, but Microsoft brought out a sneaky update that killed that, about 8 - 10 months ago I think. Everytime you loaded it up you'd get nagged about it not being a legit copy, then after about 3 months it stopped working.

Windows 7 and older versions of Office have known issues.

I'm still using my (full - including all of the add-ons like Visio ) copy of office 2003 - but then I'm running XP.

I've tried O2007 and 2010 and both leave me rather meh.

My copy no longer even bugs me about its legitimacy (it is, but it was the update that was found to be wrong).
My licence key was verified by MS and that update was disabled.

Why not register it? MS went to an "activation" model around the time of XP, so if you mean "activate" when you say "register" and you have a legit copy, why not just do so?

Also, people are scared of Microsoft when it comes to this sort of thing, but it's not really necessary. They're not going to shut off your computer or something, especially if they don't know who you are. It can't hurt to call them, and I've actually found that if you act somewhat confused, sad, and hopeful, they often will just give you an activation, so long as you have a good story for why you should have it.

That said, most of my experience is with more commercial licensing schemes, not consumer stuff. For example, I had a subscription to their "Action Pack" which is a bunch of licenses to software that they sell to developers and contractors as an inexpensive bundle... One thing it included was 10 seats of Windows XP Pro. I eventually used them all up, and it stopped working. I just called them up, acted confused, said it wasn't working, and I really needed it to, and they gave me a key to activate it. If I recall correctly, I think I did it more than once.

That's the thing. Legit copy, no sign of code on any of the bumph that came with my laptop.

Looking for how I find it. I see that in older (Pre 7) edition of Windows, you could dig it out the Registry, but no such advice for Windows 7!

But Open Office is pretty good
After you get used to it it basically does everything the new Office does.

All I ever use MS Office for now is adding Title Pages, Table of Contents, Headers and Footers. Then only because it looks much better that way

Well theoretically my Office 2000 discs should be turning up soon.

Curses being 200 mile aways from my stuffs!

If you have internet access, why not use the online MS Word web apps? They are free for personal use and similar to the desktop versions.

Never heard of such a thing to be honest.

Mr Mystery wrote:Never heard of such a thing to be honest.

They released them alongside the latest Office release (Office 2010)

http://office.microsoft.com/en-gb/web-apps/