Lost Product key?
A friend asked what to do when MS Word keeps asking for the Product key. I usually don’t care to write about trivial (to me) things like this, but since I already typed it up, I figured I might as well share it with you in case anyone else has the same problem. Here is what I told her. ..
If you have a valid product key but don’t know where it is, you may be able to call Microsoft and explain you lost the key or you can get a product key recovery utility from the Internet. Most utilities to charge you to recover your key, but here is a completely free one I’ve used before that I can vouch for http://www.magicaljellybean.com/keyfinder.shtml
It works for all but Office 2000.
An alternative is to download OpenOffice.. it is a free replacement that will open your word, excel, and powerpoint files. It can be installed on the same computer as MS office without problems. Just watch out for the point where you decide whether to associate .doc, .xls, and .ppt files with OpenOffice. For the most part it works just like MS office, but there are a few difference, such as it took me a while to learn to print notes view of powerpoint slides.
It is a big download so it will take a while, > 90Mb, but you can get it here: It’s also available for you Linux, Mac, and Solaris users.. It says there is a FreeBSD port too.
http://download.openoffice.org/
Or if you want to download all night, there is the 200mb OpenOffice Premium, it contains extra clipart, fonts, templates, etc….
It works, it’s free, duh…