17 replies to this topic

[drmsucks]

Dell Dimension 2400 with Win XP was purchased new by a friend of mine with Office 2003 (Office XP).

The OS is corrupted and needs to be re-installed and they do not have any original CD's.

I was able to pull the Product key using Magic Jelly Bean Finder but Dell says that the product is too old for them to have the software, go to Microsoft. MS says that they can't help because Dell provided the software...

So, how do I find a download of MS Office 2003 that will work with the key that I have?

[Man'n'Black-4xp]

I have old disc I have two setsthat sayMS works suite 2003...
If that can be made to help you let me know....

[Man'n'Black-4xp]

I also have old Dell discs...

[drmsucks]

Man'n'Black - Thank you for the kind offer! At this moment, however, I'll continue searching for the MS Office suite (instead of MS Works). And, in regard to the Dell disks, I've already re-installed XP from an OEM Windows disk that I have and downloaded necessary drivers from Dell. Computer runs great - just needs Office.

Thanks again!

[Broni]

What about Open Office? Free...better than some 8 years old MS Office.

[Berton]

So far my experience has been that an OEM Product Key will work with an unbranded OEM Disc but getting a copy may be a problem.

[drmsucks]

Broni, on 21 December 2011 - 12:48 AM, said:

What about Open Office? Free...better than some 8 years old MS Office.

I don't disagree but this isn't for me and they were used to the old Office, I guess. I also suggested Google Docs...

[Broni]

EBay?

[drmsucks]

Berton, on 21 December 2011 - 01:59 AM, said:

So far my experience has been that an OEM Product Key will work with an unbranded OEM Disc but getting a copy may be a problem.

Thanks, Berton. So far I'm 0 for 1, though. I found this (http://forums.mydigi...OEM-Retail-ISOs), downloaded the first item in reply #2, but got an "invalid product key."

[drmsucks]

Broni, on 21 December 2011 - 03:27 AM, said:

EBay?

They don't want to spend any money; and, (see my reply to Berton above) I can't guarantee that the product key I have will work.

[drmsucks]

I've been wanting to stay as legal as possible in this effort - that's why I took the time to call both Dell and MS. BTW, without regard to the fact that neither would "own up," the experience wasn't too bad! The Dell rep answered probably within 2-3 min, and, MS did the same (after a huge struggle with the mechanical man wanting me to activate the Office copy that I didn't have!)

[Berton]

This may be a time where the Product ID seen in Office's Help will be a clue if it could be opened. Usually the 3-character group in that Product ID will be either OEM for the OEM Version or 3 numbers for the Retail or Upgrade Version. The Product Key doesn't work from one type to the other, i.e. OEM key won't work on Retail and Professional won't work on Standard, etc. A couple of other things that may be involved, on is the NFR/Not For Resale version and the other is the Volume Licensing that companies frequently get. Volume Licensing does not prevent companies letting employees put it on their own computer.

[drmsucks]

Berton, on 21 December 2011 - 02:55 PM, said:

This may be a time where the Product ID seen in Office's Help will be a clue if it could be opened.

There's the rub! The computer wouldn't boot (actually it booted and immediately locked up). I was able to run Magic Jelly Bean on the drive while it was installed in another system - nice feature for Jelly Bean! But, you're right, I do not know what "type" of Office they had. I don't even know that the product key I retrieved matches the key of the version installed by Dell.

[drmsucks]

To bring this to a close...

First, thanks to: Man'n'Black, Broni, Berton and Larry(ne). I really appreciate the help!

Second, I have a Student & Home version of Office 2007 with 3 licenses and have only used 2. I "donated" the 3rd license to them. Costless for me and they're upgraded!

Thanks!

[Broni]

Nice Christmas present :)

[Berton]

Good for you.

[JohnT]

That is a the Christmas spirit and I hope they pay it forward..................

[NKTower]

I'm late to the party, so to speak, but I noticed something in the very first posting that might be indicative of the reason you had a problem. I'm posting this just in case someone comes to the thread later.

You mentioned Microsoft Office Pro 2003 (XP). That is a contractiction. Microsoft Office 2002 displays Office XP in the Help/About screen. Office 2003 does not show XP in the Help/About screen. Office 2002 was rather short-lived. If in fact you had a CD for Office 2002 you needed a key for it, and a key for Office 2003 wouldn't have worked.

To furher muddy the waters, there were many SKUs for the Office Suites:

• Retail - regular and Pro
  
• Retail - Upgrade - regular and Pro
  
• OEM - regular and Pro
  
• MSDN - regular and Pro

Now add that for a while the OEM things were bumped to SP1, SP2, and SP3 for factory installation.
I don't know if they slip-streamed the retail versions. I know that they did NOT ship CDs with updated installations (i.e. SP1, SP2, SP3) to MSDN subscribers, you had to apply the service packs yourself even if you joined while SP3 was released.

I've seen OEM Office 2003 Pro on eBay for about $40 +S/H from time to time. Just be sure it is the product rather than a resource CD or a 3rd-party training CD etc.

OpenOffice.org's OpenOffice Suite (3.3 as of this writing is very good. Unfortunately the 'BASE' database doesn't support VBA, but the Word, Excel, and PowerPoint programs do. You can configure them to be default open and/or save to use the MS formats.