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Office:2008 Re-Registration?

I've received my copy of Office:2008.

Unfortunately, I cannot figure out how to un-register the previous version. I was using a friend's code (you get three licenses with the Home and Student Edition) and I'd like to free it up for her and use my own registration codes.

No idea how. I tried deleting files that looked promising, but I was never prompted for the registration again. I'm thinking it's an invisible file somewhere, but I know it's not in "/Applications/Microsoft Office 2008" at least. I poked quickly around /Library and ~/Library but couldn't find anything ((I did manage to delete virtually everything from ~/Library/Preferences/Microsoft/ except the "Office 2008" folder. Man I had some old stuff still hanging out in there.)).

Any ideas? I'm going to feel bad despite not having done anything wrong if I have to visit hacker sites to figure out how to un-register Office so I can re-register it. 😛

P.S. Office:2008 users cannot currently register because the site rejects the product ID. This doesn't affect licensing the software to run on your computer, of course.

6 Responses to "Office:2008 Re-Registration?"

  1. In Office 2004, you launch the "Remove Office" application in the Additional Tools folder in your Microsoft Office folder. After you lauch the application, hold the Option key down. The Continue button will change to read "Remove License Info Only."

    I'm not sure if 2008 would work the same way or not.

  2. [quote comment="45798"]I'm not sure if 2008 would work the same way or not.[/quote]

    It seems it does not, unfortunately. Darn, I was all excited that the solution might be that simple. Oh well.

  3. [quote comment="45809"]http://www.entourage.mvps.org/version/license_version.html#reset[/quote]

    That did it! Thanks Bob! Two files need to be removed.

    Now if only the registration form would take actual product IDs. 😛

  4. 😈
    I do have the solution the problem come from the updates.
    the first update Office2008-1201UpdateEN do not cause trouble, so you can install it normally.
    The following updates has to be opened and all content has to be installed one by one. It is long but it works.
    How to do ?
    -Double click on compressed file of the update dmg file to open it
    -A window then appears containing the icon (disk image) of the update
    -just right click on this icon and without release your finger a table appear, then select show package content
    -another vindow open then open the file named contents
    -Then you see a package icon named distribution.dist just know you do not need this package
    -Copy to your desktops the 2 following folders: Packages and Resources
    -put them in a new folder wich must remain untitled.
    -Then open the Packages folder and you can see up to 50 or more packages remove the first one as it must not be installed: Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac if you try to install it it will tell you this, even tough you run leopard on your mac !
    "Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac requires Mac OS X version 10.4.9 or later"
    I suspect this package to contain the bug.
    -Then install one by one all the other packages.
    When you finish, you restart and then once you start any office application, the set up assistant will do its ordinary task with no bug, when you are finished, you won't be bugged anymore with .
    Just mind you have to do this with every upgrade, it tooks me a few hours, but now I do have word, powerpoint excel and entourage working fine and up to date.
    When I run those, it still tell me that I am on 12.0.1 version but it doesn't matter as security upgrade has been installed.

    So to resume, just delete the following packages:
    -distribution.dist as it gives an error message when you use a copy of it or when you modified the content of disk image.
    -and Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac
    Install all the others

    Some upgrade are downloaded as compressed files and you can't modify then, you just can copy the content to your desktop and do as described above.

    Some other upgrades are downloaded as disk image, and you can modify them easily but it is useless as the package named distribution.dist will cause trouble and won't install the upgrade if the disk image has been modified.
    So just move distribution.dist and Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac.pkg to the trash then install all others packages, one by one.

    Good luck all !

  5. Bob!

    Thank you! Worked like a charm...