Microsoft Office 2016 installation, MSDN?

KabyBlue · 28 Aug 2018

alphanumeric & Kari

I found this thread quite enlightening as I have always wondered how people could get away with selling MS Office licenses for cheap on sites like eBay & reddit.

So if I understand what I read thus far, post like this (Office 365 Pro Plus For Mac & Windows) aren't really "lifetime" in the mundane sense because these sellers are either paying annual subscriptions to Microsoft or are middle-men who work for an entity (such as a University) that does.

Would that be correct?

alphanumeric · 28 Aug 2018

I have no idea to be honest, how or where they sourced that from?

Kari · 28 Aug 2018

KabyBlue said:

I found this thread quite enlightening as I have always wondered how people could get away with selling MS Office licenses for cheap on sites like eBay & reddit.

So if I understand what I read thus far, post like this (Office 365 Pro Plus For Mac & Windows) aren't really "lifetime" in the mundane sense because these sellers are either paying annual subscriptions to Microsoft or are middle-men who work for an entity (such as a University) that does.

I guess you are trying to be funny. If so, you failed; I find your post utmost stupid and not funny at all.

I mean, no one with any brain capacity could ever think that a product worth $200 when bought from a legitimate source can be legally bought with less than $4 from another source,

Either you have no brain capacity, or you are trolling.

Let me ask you this: If someone came to you and told that you can buy a brand new Mercedes worth $50,000 with $999, would you think that it is a valid, legal offer, and that you could just buy it, register it and drive it until end of days without any issues?

Any offer to get Office 2016 or Windows 10 license with a few bucks from eBay is of course not legit, Using your brain is, although not mandatory, strongly recommended.

,Kari

Kari · 28 Aug 2018

... and before @alphanumeric posts an objection to my previous post: Yes, you can be absolutely sure that an Office license costing single digit £ / $ / € on eBay or any other online merchant is always a pirate, invalid product.

I repeat: ALWAYS!

KabyBlue · 28 Aug 2018

Kari said:

I guess you are trying to be funny. If so, you failed; I find your post utmost stupid and not funny at all.

I mean, no one with any brain capacity could ever think that a product worth $200 when bought from a legitimate source can be legally bought with less than $4 from another source,

Either you have no brain capacity, or you are trolling.

Let me ask you this: If someone came to you and told that you can buy a brand new Mercedes worth $50,000 with $999, would you think that it is a valid, legal offer, and that you could just buy it, register it and drive it until end of days without any issues?

Any offer to get Office 2016 or Windows 10 license with a few bucks from eBay is of course not legit, Using your brain is, although not mandatory, strongly recommended.

,Kari

Clearly from your condescending & asinine response I have to elaborate on my initial statement which you chose to take out of context (unless there is a language barrier you wish to disclose?)

I never stated that I thought such heavily discounted license prices on sites such as eBay (a common place for software piracy) where legit and if you can provide proof to the contrary I would appreciate some evidence. Otherwise, an apology would be in order (wouldn't be surprised if that was beyond your greatness' ability).

When I stated I was "enlightened" I was referring to your statement below...

Kari said:

First just to clarify: MSDN subscriptions is discontinued. Today, you get free Microsoft product downloads with a Visual Studio subscription. However, a lot of users still talk about MSDN downloads and keys, although today it is VS (Visual Studio) downloads and keys.

Specifically, I wasn't familiar with the Visual Studio subscription (nor MSDN for that matter) and posterior to your statement above, I did some research to better understand what is was & how it works. Thus, I came back to this thread in hopes of further clarification -- which I believe you called trolling?

Ok sir...

** Disclaimer... I take no pride speaking to you in this manner Mr. Kari as I do revere your contributions on this forum but also am not one to be used as a verbal punching bag either **

KabyBlue · 28 Aug 2018

alphanumeric said:

I have no idea to be honest, how or where they sourced that from?

Thank you for your response. At least it was amicable...

alphanumeric · 29 Aug 2018

KabyBlue said:

Thank you for your response. At least it was amicable...

It's almost certainly pirated etc. Common sense will tell you that. Proving its 100% fake isn't so easy though. If it was it wouldn't have been there in the first place.

I almost unsubscribed when Kari tried to bait me. Looks like I may have to reconsider my decision of taking him off my ignore list. My only advise is to just let it go, and don't poke the bear. I want to say more but will follow my own advice this time.

Kari · 29 Aug 2018

I admit that my posts were harsh. I had a point to make.

I am not apologizing my profound hatred for piracy in all its forms. I want to make my point very clear, hoping some future readers of this thread will think before buying.

These scammers selling operating systems can continue doing it as long as there are buyers. On the other hand, the user buying these products with a single digit price really is either stupid if he / she really thinks the product is legit, or knowingly guilty of piracy and not caring about the origins of the product.

It can be compared to selling and buying stolen stuff. Criminal activity.

Kari

jimbo45 · 29 Aug 2018

Hi folks

Piracy I agree with Kari - but there's some sort of grey area -- if I sell a used computer with these products installed --is it legal if it was a properly purchased retail copy (not the old Technet / MSDN stuff) and if I have say an old licensed copy (retail) of office 2010 can I pass it on to someone else provided I remove all instances from my setup.

As far as Office 2016 is concerned any ISO's come from the MSDN (now Visual studio) subscriptions and those are definitely only for the single use of the subscription holder. I don't even think there's any "permanent" OEM copies of office 2016 either - sometimes new computers will have a trial version of Office 365 these days - but then the user has to sign up.

So my suspicion is that all these "Scambay" copies are pirate ones and Ms should block any that it gets info about. Since Windows 10 sends some stuff back to Ms it surely would be quite easy to check if a user was using an office product and to see where the original source came from.

Cheers
jimbo

Kari · 29 Aug 2018

jimbo45 said:

Piracy I agree with Kari - but there's some sort of grey area -- if I sell a used computer with these products installed --is it legal if it was a properly purchased retail copy (not the old Technet / MSDN stuff)?

I don't see any grey areas there. All OS and software licenses from Microsoft and any other software maker that are not subscription based, be it retail or OEM, are not restricted to one person or user (or depending on the license type to X number of users) but rather to one device (or X number of devices). Your PC is yours to sell, subject to OS and all software on it being valid and licensed, you are free to sell it as it is. Just boot to Audit Mode, remove all user accounts, sysprep to OOBE and restart. When OOBE region selection screen is shown, power off the PC and sell it letting new owner to create his / her own initial admin user.

Of course, you may then not re-install the licensed software you sold with PC on another PC.

This naturally does not directly apply subscription based licenses. I could not sell the laptop I am using to write this post as it is because I have a lot of stuff installed where the license is tied to my person by an email address, Office, Screenpresso screenshot tool and CyberGhost VPN, just to name a few. I would first need to uninstall Office license and remove my connected accounts from Office, sign out from other email subscription based programs and remove all traces of emails these subscriptions are using, and so on.

jimbo45 said:

If I have say an old licensed copy (retail) of office 2010 can I pass it on to someone else provided I remove all instances from my setup?

The above also applies here. Regardless if your retail licensed software is on physical install media or requires a digital download, it's yours to sell as long as maximum number of devices it can be installed to or maximum number of allowed installs is not reached.

Kari