Product Activation in Office 2000?

[Joswin]

I was just watching a video on product activation on the MS site (what can I say, I was bored :p) and the commentator mentioned that product activation piloted in Office 2000. I heard that from a few people a while back on forums/newsgroups but I can?t say I have ever seen this or know if it?s true.

Just general interest so I thought 'General Foru:). :) I would imagine that if activation was in Office 2000 than all this fuss about PA would have happened a while ago. Anyone ever come across a copy of Office 2000 that they had to activate?

[tkyoshi]

Yes, I have.

Acedemic versions of Office 2000 are required to activate. I guess this is so you can't pass the copy along to your friends and stuff.

[StOnD]

Yeah I paid out the arse for a copy of Office 2000 Pro a while back and I can't use it anymore because it won't activate on my system, I changed too much hardware, and changed the OS too many times :(

I never installed it on any other comps either.

DAMN I HATE PRODUCT ACTIVATION!

[Hypercube]

Originally posted by tkyoshi

Yes, I have.

Acedemic versions of Office 2000 are required to activate. I guess this is so you can't pass the copy along to your friends and stuff.

Except when your university accidently slips you a copy of their corporate edition :)

[tkyoshi]

Originally posted by SyS_Reactor

Except when your university accidently slips you a copy of their corporate edition :)

heh heh heh. Why not just use 1 copy of the original? quite stupid to put it only into certain versions.

[Kusanagi]

All retail/oem copies in Brazil required activation :p

[Guest Dclanz]

/Me has never seen PA in action and me never wants to.:ditsy:

[Joswin]

Hmm one thought i just had.

If you activate your copy of Office in Windows XP say, and you decide to go back to Windows 2000 or 98 even etc. Does that count against you? or is the OS transparent to the activation?

Just wondered. :)

[KC]

First I ever heard of it was in XP and then in Office Xp, i guess Microsoft might have piolted it in Office 2000 on some relase's like the academic one.

[SkId_mARK]

Got to love the corp versions .... of 2000 and 2002 that is;)

[Keldyn]

Moved to Software

[Joswin]

Originally posted by Keldyn

Moved to Software

Now i know why i couldnt find it when i came back earlier. lol. :p

[Craig f]

run setup /a and create an administrative install point, then install from that location and presto!!

no more OPA!

Worked great for me

[Geronimo]

The activatation only happens with a full version of Office 2000. If you have an Upgrade version it will not ask for the activation but a registration which you can tell it you would not like to reg it.

BTW if you need a full version of Office 2000 you only need to buy the Upgrade as MS left a hole in the Upgrade that allows you to install the full version with no previous version of Office install.

[altezza Veteran]

Originally posted by SkId_mARK

Got to love the corp versions .... of 2000 and 2002 that is;)

Indeed they are! :)

[Winston]

since we're on this topic

i remmber back then in whistler beta testing stage the introduction of WPA marked the end of pirating for sum peoples perception but i still remmeber that they said the new versions of Win2k will have it as well

has anyone seen WPA in Win 2k?>

[Joswin]

Originally posted by Geronimo

The activatation only happens with a full version of Office 2000. If you have an Upgrade version it will not ask for the activation but a registration which you can tell it you would not like to reg it.

Od, i have a FULL version of Office 2000 Premium Edition and it does not require any kind of PA :) lucky i guess.

[cheekymonkey]

Me too. I've got a 4 disc msdn version of office 2000 premium sr1... no product activation. Never knew PA was included in some versions of 2000.

[Joswin]

From what i could find out on MS's site it was only in some countries. Maybe one's they thought more at risk of piracy? :s or ones they thought they could get away with testing it in. :)

[Joswin]

I was playing (ok pratting ;)) about with Office XP yesterday and i happened on something interesting. I have my standard key i use to install and with this i can install Office XP fresh. However i was urrm *found* another key with a little help from blue list (but thats not relivent really). I put that in (still messing around here, i was bored) and it told me i didnt have a qualifiying product. So i poped in the Office 2000 CD and it then was happy and installed. But it would ONLY let me upgrade another version of office.

So is this what Microsoft are now doing? copies of Office XP 'Upgrade' in the shops are FULL versions just with CDKEYs that control if its an upgrade or full version? Interesting :)

[Tim Dorr Veteran]

Originally posted by RobertH

I was playing (ok pratting ;)) about with Office XP yesterday and i happened on something interesting. I have my standard key i use to install and with this i can install Office XP fresh. However i was urrm *found* another key with a little help from blue list (but thats not relivent really). I put that in (still messing around here, i was bored) and it told me i didnt have a qualifiying product. So i poped in the Office 2000 CD and it then was happy and installed. But it would ONLY let me upgrade another version of office.

So is this what Microsoft are now doing? copies of Office XP 'Upgrade' in the shops are FULL versions just with CDKEYs that control if its an upgrade or full version? Interesting :)

duh. could have told you that ages ago :D

my copy of office 2k will upgrade itself, just point it back to the cd when it asks to see a proof of upgrade eligebility :D

[Joswin]

duh, no i didnt mean that :p i knew about Office 2000 upgrading itself too. What i was trying to say was that the CDKEY seems to control if the program is an UPGRADE version of a FULL version.

Unless i have missed something there used to be file differences too, maybe MS wanted to make it easyer on itself. :)

[Weasel]

Office 2000 came with my laptop when I bought it a year ago, and it had product activation. I wanted to install it on my desktop though so i called up microsoft. Basically I just tried to make up some bull**** like I had to format my harddrive and it says it already has a copy activated in its database. The first person I talked to stonewalled, and said I had to call the OEM or something, but when I called back I got someone who sounded like she could care less about her job and just gave me another activation number.

It's a good thing M$ had to spend so much money developing product activation, only to hire $6 / hour employees who will just give out multiple activation numbers, ha.

[Joswin]

lol, maybe its the purks of working on the activation lines as in getting your own activation numbers made for personal use. ;) Wonder if that has ever happened? lol.

[Weasel]

Originally posted by RobertH

lol, maybe its the purks of working on the activation lines as in getting your own activation numbers made for personal use. ;) Wonder if that has ever happened? lol.

no doubt.