Microsoft has a great deal for employees of many corporate customers: its Home Use Program. I stumbled upon this option a few years back as a government contractor. For a nominal fee (say, $15 a product, the products being Office Professional, Project and/or Visio. You may need to initiate the transaction through your work email account.) There are certain licensing restrictions, one being that if you leave your job, you need to deinstall your programs.
(That may explain why after I changed government contractor positions, my software "disappeared". They may have thought I needed to obtain a new license, even though the end client was the same. It's not so much paying an extra $15 for a new license but the deinstallation without notice. I'm used to subscription software, e.g., security, warning me of an upcoming expiration date.
It reminds me of a condo in Normal, IL I had rented while a visiting professor at ISU. What I wasn't aware of was that I was expected to pay the water bill. The owner never forwarded the utility bills, and the water company never mailed or left a warning notice for the occupant. So I had worked out before going to the university to lecture, went to take a shower--and found my water had been cut off. I soon traced down the miscommunication; it still bothers me how the water company would go to the point of shutting off the water without a good faith attempt to contact the occupant; I had no way of knowing the owner was trashing the notices. I had intended to rent an apartment, but a colleague's wife was a broker who was managing the property for the absentee owner.)
But the issues I've encountered have less to do with registration or activation and more to do with usability. The HUP software download has a download link default for a 32-bit install. There's a subordinated 64-bit link. I tried to install the 64-bit version; long story short, I get a message that the software is installed; go to the Start Menu. And--I see no program icons. I don't see a listed application in Window programs. Are there known issues with the 64-bit version? Nothing I can tell from an Internet search. I decide to try the 32-bit version; as the default install, it should be more bullet-proof. Only to find out that it refuses to do the install, because it thinks the (inferred: 64-bit) software is already installed.
So how do I uninstall an application which isn't even listed? I did ;more Internet searching and eventually run across an Activation Troubleshooter. It's a bit dated (I don't see reference to a newer one), but after it's run, I finally see the new (and old) HUP Office products showing up in Windows Programs. I deinstall the old HUP Offie. I try to repair the HUP 64-bit Office, but that turns out to be a waste of time, so I deinstall it, too.
I then try to install the 32-bit version. This time I get program icons in the start menu.
Activation is somewhat obscure because Microsoft by default wants you to register via a Microsoft (live.com). You launch one of the new Office icons. and it should launch an activation screen. You have to look for a bypass link at the bottom of the pop-up (and maybe another bypass link on the bottom of the next screen) before you get to a license input screen. How do you know that the product has been activated? One sign is you'll see Microsoft screen unlock a number of templates, etc. on the spartan application screen. A second is once you open up, say, a blank document. Go to the left/top File menu and click on Account (near the bottom).
(They do discuss the bypass approach but in an obscure way. I was initially expecting it to surface during, not after the install process.)
I ran into a different issue during installation of another product, Visio. To understand the context, when you launch the product install, you get an Office install progress icon in your system tray, e.g., 3% complete. During the Visio install, this icon disappeared. I used the everything search tool to verify lots of Visio files got installed--but not the executable, e.g., visio.exe. I eventually get to a Microsoft/contractor install agent online and start peppering her for manual deinstall processes (including any registry fixes), and the only thing she wants to do is to pass me off to another group: Commercial. (This shouldn't be surprising to anyone who has ever dealt with a help desk.) Literally right at the end of the chat session, I suddenly see the Office install progress icon reappear in my system tray. This time it persists through the remainder of the install. The point is I had almost prematurely deinstalled the product, thinking it had aborted.
