How to figure out how many licenses are remaining on Office 07 disc

jme467

Hey guys,

I have 3 copies of Microsoft Office Home and Student 2007, each with 3 licenses, and I know two of them have some licenses used and 1 is completely unused..

I was just wondering if anyone knows of a way that I can check to see how many licenses are remaining on each disc?

Appreciate any help!

JDxtra

Aren't these license packs meant to be used within the same household?

seamus

Count the number of computers on which you've installed them.

I'm only slightly joking there. The licenses aren't really tied to the discs, they're tied to the software. You can use one disc to install the software on nine computers and you're OK as long as you have nine licences. The discs don't "know" how many licences you have.

Fysh

From the Microsoft Software License Terms (MSLT) for Microsoft Office Home and Student 2007:

"You may install one copy of the software on three licensed devices in your household for use by people who reside there. The software is not licensed for use in any commercial, non-profit, or revenue-generating business activities."

Why do I mention this? Because if you can't easily count how many computers you've installed the software on, you may be in breach of the licence under which you've got the software.

Worst case scenario, you could audit every computer on which you've installed the software and check how often you've used each Product Key. There are tools that let you retrieve the product key from an existing install, but I won't name any since I'm not sure how legitimate they are.

jme467

Ok guys, appreciate all the information there..

There is nothing 'fishy' or in breach of the licence agreement going on here.

The situation is basically that I'm working in a school part-time, and we got 9 laptops delivered during the summer, and they came with the 3 copies of Office (adding up to 9 licenses).. The company said they had installed Office on a few of the laptops, and said how many licenses were used on each disc, but the problem is that they never specified, for example, 2 used on disc 1 and 1 used on disc 3.. I was just looking for an easy way to find which disc was which..
Thanks anyway

@seamus So does that mean that I can use the same disc to install the software on each of the laptops, and then just try the licenses until one stops working?

William Powell

As you say just use the one of the keys till it stops activating then move on to the next, to save reinstalling if a key turns out to be used up then http://support.microsoft.com/kb/895456 will explain what you need to do.

jme467

Cheers William!