Solved Is Windows Office 2013 too old?

Hazel123 said:

That is exactly the issue with the new Paint version. And thank you for telling me you can't collapse the menu because now I can stop trying to find how to do that! It's ridiculous as you can't fit enough on the screen to highlight something to crop it. Is the Windows 7 version of Paint different from the Windows 10 version? And can you download the Windows 10 version?

The irony is - when I bought Word standalone it was actually the same price as buying the whole Office - I just didn't want the whole office as it was for a low powered computer with a very small drive at the time (ie netbook).

So you mean my copy of office 2021 is unofficial? I'm confused. I remember a lot of discussion about it and some people saying that but others confirming it was official.

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Your copy of Office just like mine came with official Product Keys. Read what follows to understand why I said what I did.

The first three editions of Office I gave in my last post are all Retail. That means that these are the versions of Office that Microsoft has authorized for sale by retail outlets. The last edition, Office Professional Plus 2021, is a Volume License (VL) version of Office. Typical VL software requires either a MAK or KMS key. These keys are special in that one key can activate more than one copy of the software. The number depends upon how many activations the business has bought.

Note volume license software unlike retail is only supposed to be purchased from official Microsoft approved Volume License Distributors. You can't buy anything from one of these distributors unless you are authorized. Examples are businesses, non-profits, and computer professionals.

Software like Office Professional Plus 2021 comes with a special VL Retail key. Software like that are meant for computer professionals who legally buy subscriptions from Microsoft that allows them to evaluate Microsoft software. The special VL Retail keys they receive can also activate multiple copies of the software. I don't know what the limit is but it could easily be 100 or more. These special VL Retail keys are only supposed to be used by the computer professional who has bought the subscription. They are not supposed to be resold or given away.

It has been suspected that people are obtaining these special VL keys somewhere in the world and selling them online. Like I said one key can activate multiple copies of the software. That means they can sell the same key more than once. As long as they don't sell the same key too many times there won't be a problem. The problem is if the same key is activated too many times then Microsoft's activation servers will flag that and start blocking the key. Too bad for the buyer.

BTW, if the original professional subscriber activates his keys too many times then a quick call to Microsoft usually results in the activation limit being increased. Unauthorized buyers of these keys may have no recouse if this happens. Most reputable online sellers will send you a new key if the key doesn't activate right after the sale. If the buyer waits too long and finds the key won't activate then his only option is to buy a new key.

With older versions of Paint you could collapse the toolbar ribbon. It would be really nice if you could do that with the current version of Paint. The strange thing is you can collapse the ribbon in Word and Wordpad.

Always Why said:

Yes. Though maybe they download a compatibility patch or have a few errors during installation. I doubt they care about getting Office 2007 updates from Windows Updates.

When I installed Office 2017 on this new computer about two months ago I had no problems and did get all the updates through Windows Updates for Office 2017. You just have to enable "allow updates from Microsoft Products".

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Actually, I was addressing you. I had never before seen a reference to MSOffice 2017 & I thought that you might have mistyped 2007.
Now you've repeated 2017, I've looked it up & found that it does exist. I'm amazed I had never seen references to it before.


All the best,
Denis

Try3 said:

Actually, I was addressing you. I had never before seen a reference to MSOffice 2017 & I thought that you might have mistyped 2007.
Now you've repeated 2017, I've looked it up & found that it does exist. I'm amazed I had never seen references to it before.


All the best,
Denis

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You can find new and used disks with licenses at eBay too. I paid $22.00 for a used disk with two licenses left on it.

LesFerch said:

On the rare occasions that I need a spreadsheet, I sometimes use Google Sheets, but it's a much more pleasant experience for me to use Excel from Office 2010. I know it well, it gives me zero grief, it's a whole lot faster than working via a web interface, and it still works fine with Windows 10 and 11. I don't use Word though (or any word processor). I prefer MD (Markdown) text files.

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Office 2010 was the best version ever -- unless you need newer functionality -- just forget all the newer versions.

Cheers
jimbo

jimbo45 said:

Office 2010 was the best version ever -- unless you need newer functionality -- just forget all the newer versions.

Cheers
jimbo

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It may not get the security updates of later versions. After doing my research when W11 first came out, it was Office 2017 that got the highest ratings for people who did not want Office 365.

Tip: Jimbo, you speak like an absolutist. Suggestions are best in any forum.

Try3 said:

Actually, I was addressing you. I had never before seen a reference to MSOffice 2017 & I thought that you might have mistyped 2007.
Now you've repeated 2017, I've looked it up & found that it does exist. I'm amazed I had never seen references to it before.


All the best,
Denis

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You can do a search and get all kinds of hits for Microsoft Office 2017. I think you got it right the first time. I think it was a typo. All the hits for Microsoft Office 2017 always leads to another version that does exist. Here are the standalone versions of Microsoft Office since 1995.

My wife still uses Office 2007, I just looked on her laptop W11 upgrade from W10. It has all the security updates too! The years fly by so damn fast as we become senior citizens of the world.

She says "that's all she needs" for her own clerical stuff.

Plenty of Office 2007 at eBay. And you'll get security updates from WU. Pretty cool.

Always Why said:

It has all the security updates too!

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It has all the security updates until it went out of support in Oct 2017 [plus 1 more a few months later].

Denis

Try3 said:

It has all the security updates until it went out of support in Oct 2017 [plus 1 more a few months later].

Denis

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Yep. It's a very good version. It's a K.I.S.S. Microsoft Office.

Always Why said:

My wife still uses Office 2007, I just looked on her laptop W11 upgrade from W10. It has all the security updates too! The years fly by so damn fast as we become senior citizens of the world.

She says "that's all she needs" for her own clerical stuff.

Plenty of Office 2007 at eBay. And you'll get security updates from WU. Pretty cool.

Microsoft Office 2007 for sale | eBay

Get the best deals for Microsoft Office 2007 at eBay.com. We have a great online selection at the lowest prices with Fast & Free shipping on many items!

www.ebay.com

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I have Office 2003, 2007, 2010 and 2013, 2019, and 2021. I like the user interface for Office 2010 better than any of the other ones. People mustn't have liked the way the ribbon looked in Office 2007 so they fixed that with Office 2010. Office 2013-2021 have added a few more useful features but at the expense of bloat.

Even Office 2003 gets updates after you install it. After all its end of support wasn't until April 8, 2014.

I've had literally every version of Office since it was introduced and I now have my subscription to Microsoft 365. I use Word, Excel, Outlook, OneNote and OneDrive every day and wouldn't be without the latest versions as I love to learn and use new things. I keep all my data in OneDrive and having a terabyte of cloud OneDrive included in my Microsoft 365 subscription makes it a steal at $69/year.

TraderGary said:

I've had literally every version of Office since it was introduced and I now have my subscription to Microsoft 365. I use Word, Excel, Outlook, OneNote and OneDrive every day and wouldn't be without the latest versions as I love to learn and use new things. I keep all my data in OneDrive and having a terabyte of cloud OneDrive included in my Microsoft 365 subscription makes it a steal at $69/year.

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Apart from ability to install on multiple devices, there is a new hidden benefit.

If you use the free version of Teams, it now limits calls (since 12/04/23) to 1 hour unless you pay $4 per month to upgrade to allow 30 hours per call.

However, if you have Office 365, you get 30 hours in the price of Office 365.

I understand your frustration with large organizations and the difficulty in getting through to someone. However, Microsoft has dedicated support channels that can help you out. Give it a shot and see if they can recognize your purchase and provide the assistance you need. Office 2013 might have been too old to be compatible with newer systems like Windows 11, which explains the hiccup you faced. I hope that you found a solution to your problem in the past couple of years! If you were still looking for an upgrade or if anyone else stumbles upon this thread, I highly recommend considering Microsoft Office 2021 Professional Plus. It's packed with all the latest features and updates, making it perfect for today's tech-savvy world.

I have a laptop that is owned by a non-profit so I bought a volume license version of Office 2010 Pro Plus. It came with a free upgrade to Office 2013 Pro Plus. Both versions came with MAK keys that I obtained from Microsoft. I also bought Windows 8 Pro which also came with a MAK key.

Office 2010 Pro Plus was originally installed on Windows 7 Pro. I also installed Windows 8 Pro on it and then upgraded to Windows 8.1 Pro. When Windows 10 came out I did a free upgrade to Windows 10 Pro. I uninstalled Office 2010 Pro Plus and replaced it with the Office 2013 Pro Plus.

Currently Office 2013 Pro Plus runs fine on Windows 10 Pro. I don't know why Office 2013 wouldn't run on Windows 11. Note this laptop is 13 years old so I have no plans to upgrade to Windows 11.