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Friday, February 16, 2007
Microsoft Office 2007
I just picked up an upgrade copy of Microsoft Office 2007 Professional from Costco. I also picked up a copy of the Home and Student version. That may seem kind of weird, but Office Professional doesn't include OneNote, while the Home and Student version does. Costco doesn't carry the standalone version of OneNote, and it didn't seem like the H&S box would cost all that much more than OneNote anyway. Now that I'm looking into it a bit more, I see that Amazon has OneNote Home and Student 2007 for $54. I should probably look into returning the Office H&S version, or maybe selling it or giving it to someone at work.

The previous version of MS Office Pro allowed you to install it on both a desktop and laptop, and it looks like that's OK with the new version too. You can pull up all of Microsoft's license agreements here. The Office Pro agreement has this wording in it:
INSTALLATION AND USE RIGHTS. Before you use the software under a license, you must assign that license to one device. That device is the "licensed device." A hardware partition or blade is considered to be a separate device.
a. Licensed Device. You may install and use one copy of the software on the licensed device.
b. Portable Device. You may install another copy on a portable device for use by the single primary user of the licensed device.

So that's pretty straightforward. The H&S version is a little different:
You may install one copy of the software on three licensed devices in your household for use by people who reside there. The software is not licensed for use in any commercial, non-profit, or revenue-generating business activities.

Kind of interesting. I really wish they would just include OneNote with the Professional version, though. That would have made things a bit easier.

On another topic, Microsoft has come up with the weirdest possible retail packaging for Office 2007. It comes in a hard plastic case that's rounded at the upper right corner, and hinged at the lower right corner. The inner section basically pivots out on that hinge. The CDs are stuck on a hub on the outside of this inner section, and the manual is inside it. (The H&S version doesn't come with a real manual, by the way, while the Pro version includes a "getting started" guide that's a little under 200 pages.) The product key is printed on a sticker that's affixed to the back side of the inner section. The end result of all this is that you've got a plastic box that you can't collapse, nor can you easily toss it out without losing your product key. If you want to get rid of the box, you need to find a separate CD jewel case to keep the CDs in, and you need to either photocopy or carefully peel off the product key sticker. I guess Microsoft does this kind of thing to make the retail box stand out on the shelf, but it's really just a big waste of plastic. Oh well.

I'm not sure if there are any good books out for Office 2007 yet. There's a free e-book that you can download from Microsoft at their Office 2007 Learning Portal. It looks there are links to some other useful stuff at that page too.

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