Deletion of Office on upgrading from 1803 to 1903

Fellow forum members,

My previous issue, that of successfully installing version 1903, was successfully solved by remote assistance by Microsoft support here in Bangkok. Imagine then my dismay to find that Office was uninstalled in the process. How do I now go about recovering the Office license that came with the laptop I bought six months ago? What evidence do I need to produce in order for Microsoft to return my access/license to Office? I hate to think that the successful upgrade, which was free of charge, has a sting in its tail: the purchase of a new Office license!

A long shot, perhaps: is there a sticker on the laptop for the Office license?

No, according to the techie, the fact that the drives were on two HDs, i.e. the laptop's own HD and an inserted SSD drive, meant that an install option keeping everything was impossible; hence, there was no other option other than to choose option 3 which meant all apps, files etc. would be lost. In any case, I have contacted MS again and it appears the Office suite was not genuine (I bought it in Kuala Lumpur at one of the sellers in the largest downtown IT centres. He assured me it was running genuine Office.) The truth is I don't recall registering it or using a key etc., so I guess I was had. However, if that was the case, how come I able to use the Office suite without any problem from March up until yesterday when I did the upgrade? That is what I don't understand.

VirtualRecluse said:

No, according to the techie, the fact that the drives were on two HDs, i.e. the laptop's own HD and an inserted SSD drive, meant that an install option keeping everything was impossible; hence, there was no other option other than to choose option 3 which meant all apps, files etc. would be lost. In any case, I have contacted MS again and it appears the Office suite was not genuine (I bought it in Kuala Lumpur at one of the sellers in the largest downtown IT centres. He assured me it was running genuine Office.) The truth is I don't recall registering it or using a key etc., so I guess I was had. However, if that was the case, how come I able to use the Office suite without any problem from March up until yesterday when I did the upgrade? That is what I don't understand.

I don't understand the necessity of doing a clean install of 1903. I thought that an upgrade install would be possible, even some of the directories were distributed over two drives. (I have two drives, an SSD plus a spinner, but I keep all apps and directories like "documents" on the SSD. Which means that my setup may not be similar to what you had on your laptop.)

I hope that the tech gave you good advice. Last year, I had an issue activating Windows after a motherboard swap. (Legal, because I have a retail license for 8.1.) One tech told me that I'd have to clean install 8.1 and re-upgrade to 10 to get it to activate. No doubt that would have worked, but I hung up on that character soon after. After calling again, I was given a new Win10 key after I provided a copy of the invoice for the new MB. (No idea why they wanted that, but it was simple enough.)

Issue resolved, thanks to all. Am investigating the purchase via the Malaysian Consumer Rights body and have obtained a one-month free trial version of Office from MS in the meantime.