MS Office versions - 2016 especially

Currently I use Office 2010 and am very comfortable with it. It may be that I'll need to get MS Office for a new PC for elsewhere, it seems that the only versions that can now be purchased are Office 365 and Office 2016.

From what I read it seems that an internet connection is needed for these, either all the time or at least pretty frequently. I need to be able to use them free-standing, i.e. off-line.

Anyone know whether this is possible?

Would be quite happy with 2010 if I could still buy a copy - a legal one.

No you dont need an internet connection for Office 2016.

As for obtaining Office 2016 - check eBay.

In reply to a post by Pipexer:

...As for obtaining Office 2016 - check eBay.

Do you mean Office 2010?

How reliable is Ebay for software? Pirate copies? Virus'd copies?

Maybe I'm overly cynical or over cautious, but...

I have the office 365, which is downloaded to the PC as part of the install process. Once downloaded and installed you can use the software offline, like normal.

In reply to a post by cheshire_man:

In reply to a post by Pipexer:

...As for obtaining Office 2016 - check eBay.

Do you mean Office 2010?

How reliable is Ebay for software? Pirate copies? Virus'd copies?

Maybe I'm overly cynical or over cautious, but...

No I mean 2016.
if it activates it activates, if it doesn't eBay dispute and full money back!

What's with the subscriptions?

http://www.microsoftstore.com/store/msuk/en_GB/cat/categoryID.70171800?s_kwcid=AL!4249!3!76796575005!b!!g!!upgrade%20to%20ms%20%2Boffice%20%2B2016&WT.mc_id=pointitsem+Google+Adwords+Office+2016+-+EN&ef_id=VpUr4AAAAHiHufwN:20160112163957

Where did you find that link? It looks like a referral one, and seems to give the Office price page if cut off after the EN

google search for "MS Office 2016" results links goes straight to microsoftstore.com

LOL. So google taking a click-fee .

No idea. Can anyone explain what the subscriptions are for?

That's what MS is moving towards - an annual licence fee per product, not a one-off purchase.

They are probably running out of enhancements/improvements to all of them that are big enough to persuade people to upgrade. So no subscriptions, no sales, no profits.

Corporate greed.

In reply to a post by wingco1:

No idea. Can anyone explain what the subscriptions are for?

It allows you to use office as long as you subscribe, the advantage and it is the only advantage is that you get the newest version as it is updated. The disadvantage is that for normal use it is expensive and no doubt they want you to store your documents on the cloud, I bet that is the default place to save to.

I moved on from Office 2013 to 2016 recently, if you buy the 'stand alone' version there is no need to subscribe and I believe some upgrades will be given free until 2020.

To be honest, most Office users may use perhaps five or six percent of the features available, I only updated because it cost me nothing, tax deductible for a business (or so my accountant told me lol) so in reality although I run quite complex spreadsheets for the family business I could have easily 'survived' on an earlier version of office.

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

LOL. So google taking a click-fee .

I only ever click the first search result in Google that is not tagged "Ad", meaning I visit the first "organic" search result, and Google do not gain click revenue.

I've subscribed to Office 365 but I don't like it, so much so that I'm using Open Office as well. I can't stand the ribbon. If I can get Office 97 working on Windows 7, I'll move back to that in an instant. The software installs well enough and so does SP1, but SP2 refuses to install and without that, Office 97 is not much use to me. Maybe I should get my hands on the last version that didn't use the ribbon - Office 2010, I believe.

Office 2003 - no ribbon - works on Windows 7, it also works on Windows 10, I know someone using it.

The ribbon came in with Office 2007. To be honest, having persevered with it, I find it easy to use. Though occasionally, as I did with the old menu system I still sometimes hunt for an infrequently used feature.

There are 'opened' copies of Office 2003 Pro available on Amazon for £25. I'm wondering what the catch might be. Pirated editions, I suppose.

Edited by micksharpe (Tue 12-Jan-16 23:09:05)

The biggest single benefit of the subscription is the onedrive storage. I use it to back up my raw photos from holidays and the like - £80 a year is pretty cheap for the 50TB of storage I have available (although I use less than a TB but even so it is not a bad price for that level of storage). Essentially I buy the storage and get Office for free.

i don't like the ribbon either, I am using WPS office at the moment, I thought I would give it another go at least they give the choice between the ribbon and normal menus.
The problem with the ribbon is that very few producers are using it, so you go from one bit of software to another and you got to use a different UI.

The only software I have on my computer that use the ribbon apart from Windows 8.1 is as I said WPS and Foxit PDF reader and both of them can use the normal menu,

This is just Ms trying to change standards again, the same thing they tried with Internet Exploder and failed with that.

I do not like this cloudy stuff where these companies want you to stick every online. I prefer local storage. I do use dropbox for a couple of documents, but no one would have any idea what they mean if they grabbed hold of them.

The Ribbon is fine, just another change in a software package, after a while using it is second nature.

In reply to a post by zyborg47:

I do not like this cloudy stuff where these companies want you to stick every online. I prefer local storage. I do use dropbox for a couple of documents, but no one would have any idea what they mean if they grabbed hold of them.

Same here. I'd much rather pay a one-off cost of £40 for a 1 TB external drive than £80 a year for 1 TB cloud storage. I can see the use of having several GB of content in cloud storage to share between devices, but that can be had for free anyway.

And that's just on cost grounds, quite aside from the privacy implications of placing personal data in the cloud.

One useful function of One Drive is you can share it between computer and windows phone. I have about 14gb in One Drive of music.

In reply to a post by Oliver341:

Same here. I'd much rather pay a one-off cost of £40 for a 1 TB external drive than £80 a year for 1 TB cloud storage. I can see the use of having several GB of content in cloud storage to share between devices, but that can be had for free anyway.

And that's just on cost grounds, quite aside from the privacy implications of placing personal data in the cloud.

Yep and yep, I do have some pictures and some important video on a couple of USB sticks that is at a friends place, just in case anything happens here.
the one problem with drives is that they can go wrong.

In reply to a post by Banger:

One useful function of One Drive is you can share it between computer and windows phone. I have about 14gb in One Drive of music.

That is why IK use Dropbox for a couple of files, not to go from computer to phone, but from desktop to laptop, saying that I could use the NAs drivce, also saying that I have not used the laptop for months.

The two documents on dropbox is password protected and even if anyone did have a look they would have no idea what it is about.

If you have a licence for 2010, then you should be able to transfer it to a new machine.

Indeed. But it's a new PC for use elsewhere, not a replacement for my present PC.

In reply to a post by neo_wales:

The Ribbon is fine, just another change in a software package, after a while using it is second nature.

In reply to a post by cheshire_man:

The ribbon came in with Office 2007. To be honest, having persevered with it, I find it easy to use. Though occasionally, as I did with the old menu system I still sometimes hunt for an infrequently used feature.

In reply to a post by zyborg47:

i don't like the ribbon either, I am using WPS office at the moment, I thought I would give it another go at least they give the choice between the ribbon and normal menus.
The problem with the ribbon is that very few producers are using it, so you go from one bit of software to another and you got to use a different UI.

Within two days of installing MS 2007 and realising the menus were gone, I had downloaded a free menu addon.

http://www.ubit.ch/software/ubitmenuoffice2007/

In reply to a post by camieabz:

Within two days of installing MS 2007 and realising the menus were gone, I had downloaded a free menu addon.

http://www.ubit.ch/software/ubitmenuoffice2007/

So another third party bit of software and also are the menus in German like the webpage?

Mine aren't. And the ubit bar that appear there only appears when using the menu tab.

http://www.camieabz.co.uk/files/menu.png

You are paying for the right to download software updates or new versions of the software while you continue to pay the subscription. You can carry on using the version you have and gain access to the free updates/fixes after stopping any subscription.

The default is the Cloud one drive, but there is a save to computer tick box in the option/save screen to point back to the physical computer.

I see no difference to this over any of the other software buy models where I want to get upgrades by paying for it.

assuming we are talking about Office 365 that isn't correct https://products.office.com/en-us/microsoft-office-f...

What happens when my subscription ends? How can I continue to work with my documents?
As the expiration date approaches, you will receive notifications in the Office applications and via email, alerting you to the upcoming expiration. If you choose to let your subscription expire, the Office software applications enter read-only mode, which means that you can view or print documents, but you can�t create new documents or edit existing documents.
To return to full Office functionality, you can purchase a new version of Office by visiting www.office365.com or any participating retailer. You could also return to full functionality using an older version of Office, or you can use Office Online for free for basic editing.

That's all well and good if you regularly upgrade. For those of us that find a bit of software that works we just want to keep it forever and a day without a regular payment.

In reply to a post by camieabz:

Mine aren't. And the ubit bar that appear there only appears when using the menu tab.

http://www.camieabz.co.uk/files/menu.png

So it don't replace the ribbon then, it just add another option to it.

In reply to a post by iand:

You are paying for the right to download software updates or new versions of the software while you continue to pay the subscription. You can carry on using the version you have and gain access to the free updates/fixes after stopping any subscription.

The default is the Cloud one drive, but there is a save to computer tick box in the option/save screen to point back to the physical computer.

I see no difference to this over any of the other software buy models where I want to get upgrades by paying for it.

If you can carry on using the product if you stop paying then that is not so bad, I presume you have to pay for a fixed amount of time to get that option.

Adobe seems to disable the software if you stop paying.

Just wondering if you got my reply PM on Thursday?

In reply to a post by zyborg47:

If you can carry on using the product if you stop paying then that is not so bad, I presume you have to pay for a fixed amount of time to get that option.

Oldjim has made the point that Office 365 enters read-only mode if you stop paying.

In reply to a post by Pipexer:

As for obtaining Office 2016 - check eBay.

So we can read it:

In reply to a post by wingco1:

http://www.microsoftstore.com/store/msuk/en_GB/cat/c...

Just got Office 2003 Pro off eBay for £15 for my new Win 10 PC to replace my Office '97 Pro + Outlook Express on XP. It works fine and registered straightaway. All the better for not having ribbons .

In reply to a post by XRaySpeX:

Just got Office 2003 Pro off eBay for £15 for my new Win 10 PC to replace my Office '97 Pro + Outlook Express on XP. It works fine and registered straightaway. All the better for not having ribbons .

Not all the better for having a version of Office that Microsoft no longer issues security fixes for, though.

I suspect I'm going to be doing that on Tueday or thereabouts for Office 2010 - (only actually need Word, Excel, PowerPoint so Home & Student would do).

In reply to a post by cheshire_man:

I suspect I'm going to be doing that on Tueday or thereabouts for Office 2010 - (only actually need Word, Excel, PowerPoint so Home & Student would do).

You could get 2016 for the same price, but if you insist on getting a 6 year old version instead for no reason I can think of? by all means.

hay I learn something new every day. You are quite right and I was wrong. You only get to use the sw while paying for it . For me its 22p per day for MS office 2016 for all of the family pc's and droid devices, plus any upgrades during that license year..

Need to read the detail in the future. I thought I was getting the sw on the PC and it would just continue to work if I stopped the subscription. Looks like that is not the case. You get about 30 days to renew and then zap into read-only mode then eventually its gone.

If I had bought a full perpetual MS Office license for all pc's, then I would have to pay the equivalent of the 6 years (office 365 costs) up front, with no upgrades, so using the 365 Home for 5 computers works for me (for now).

I can see and understand why some may use a 2-3 year old license that is £cheap and use the MS office from the past. Basically upgrading but using sw 2-5 years old, which works and is very cheap. I did the same for win7 to get Win10 free for some VM test servers I use.

Do you have an issue with older OSs and software? If an older version works for a particular user then why pay more just to keep up with a trend?

What security issue is there that a decent firewall and antivirus software can't detect?

I'm still using XP, on two PCs and until a year ago (when the print server laptop died) I was using W2K. No hackers got through or were remotely interested.

Too much scaremongering!

In reply to a post by Oliver341:

Not all the better for having a version of Office that Microsoft no longer issues security fixes for, though.

Not much change from Office '97 + OE then, is there? They suited me for years w/out being attacked. I've still received 30 security updates for Office 2003, far more than for Win 10 since I had it.

In reply to a post by iand:

For me its 22p per day for MS office 2016 for all of the family pc's and droid devices, plus any upgrades during that license year.

I thought the licence for the current Office 2016 is for 1 PC only? Unlike Office 365.

In reply to a post by Pipexer:

In reply to a post by cheshire_man:

I suspect I'm going to be doing that on Tueday or thereabouts for Office 2010 - (only actually need Word, Excel, PowerPoint so Home & Student would do).

You could get 2016 for the same price, but if you insist on getting a 6 year old version instead for no reason I can think of? by all means.

Maybe he prefers it, I know someone who still uses word pro, and that is a lot older than 6 years. Mind you getting it to run on newer machines is getting more challenging.

Office 365 includes Office 2016 - if you pay the £80 per year version you get it on 5 PCs + 5 smartphones + 5 tablets and you get 5 x 1TB of OneDrive storage.

In reply to a post by broadband66:

Do you have an issue with older OSs and software? If an older version works for a particular user then why pay more just to keep up with a trend?

Somewhat. It's old, why get old software when you can get the new and improved version for the same price. If it is not new and improved then fair enough but Office 2016 is definately improved over 2007, 2010, 2013 I assure you!

But not at the same price; much less an annual fee.

Edited by XRaySpeX (Mon 18-Jan-16 21:34:18)

CP/M WordStar would still do all I want or need from a word processor. Similarly Supercalc for spreadsheets.

In reply to a post by Pipexer:

In reply to a post by Pipexer:

As for obtaining Office 2016 - check eBay.

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

CP/M WordStar would still do all I want or need from a word processor. Similarly Supercalc for spreadsheets.

Wordstar, now that is a thing from the past, lots of formatting commands.

So, presumably, that's what you use?

CP/M programs don't run well on Windows. For some strange reason they didn't even run well on MSDOS .

I had some great DR DOS (CP/M86 I think it was called) (DRS 300, remember that?) utilities that ran all the way up to Vista but I had to jettison them from Win 8 onwards cuz of 64-bit.

Edited by XRaySpeX (Tue 19-Jan-16 00:01:26)

So those programs wouldn't do all you want after all. (Number one requirement is that the program runs on your OS.)

I suspect you would also want to use devices (e.g. printers) not supported by WordStar (unless you have an LX200).

DR-DOS and CP/M-86 were different operating systems. I don't think that any CP/M program would run natively on MS-DOS, let alone any version of Windows.

In reply to a post by TinyMongomery:

So those programs wouldn't do all you want after all. (Number one requirement is that the program runs on your OS.)

I suspect you would also want to use devices (e.g. printers) not supported by WordStar (unless you have an LX200).

What was a LX200? I realise it was a printer, but was it dot Martix or something like a Daisy wheel?

I used to have a star LC20 in years gone by for the Amiga, I still can't believe we used to use those noisy slow things. Saying that I was printing a letter last night 11 pages in high quality on my Canon bubble jet and I was moaning about how long it was taking. It zooms along at normal quality, but oh so slow at high. Looking at a cheap laser, but It must do duplex, not bothered about wireless

A mate of mine used to use a golf ball printer, big clunky noisy thing, to get different fonts the golf ball had to be changed. He still have it no doubt would still work if he had the ribbons and connected it up to his old Apple Lisa.

My wife is a secretary/PA and gets annoyed when her employer updates/upgrades any word processing software. It takes her a while to get used to new layouts/ribbons and doesn't make her any faster overall once learned. Her typing speed is just the same.

No one on these forums has given a definitive answer to being more productive with the advent of a newer OS or programme.

If one person uses all the new toys in the newest Word programme I would be surprised. Newer doesn't necessarily make things better.

I suspect that it is something I made up (I was probably thinking of the Epson MX-80), but the concept was of a generic dot-matrix or daisy-wheel printer.

The "what have the Romans (Windows) ever done for us" argument forgets the greatest improvement that Windows made, which was to move the handling of devices from the individual programs to the operating system. WordStar (at least the DOS version, let alone the CP/M one) would not support modern printers whereas any Windows word processor will.

In reply to a post by zyborg47:

In reply to a post by camieabz:

Mine aren't. And the ubit bar that appear there only appears when using the menu tab.

http://www.camieabz.co.uk/files/menu.png

So it don't replace the ribbon then, it just add another option to it.

Yes, and it's the best of both worlds. Add your regular icons to the ribbon, but have the menu for everything else. Or it can help with transition to ribbon, if you like.