Using An Old Microsoft Office License On New Mac

My old computer died and I need to get Microsoft Office 2016 onto my new computer. How do I go about it? Technician's Assistant: What application are you using? Hi Pearl, I am using Word, Excel, Access. Mar 13, 2014 A new version of Microsoft Office may be ready for the Mac soon. Is it as important as it used to be? Rumor has it that Microsoft is on the cusp of releasing a new version of Office for Mac. It's been more than three years since the last version of Office came out. Things have changed a lot. Is Microsoft Office still important? If you're the Office 365 admin of an Office for business plan, users in your organization can only install Office using the steps in this topic as long as your plan includes the desktop version of Office, and you've assigned the user a license and given them permission to install Office (Manage software download settings in Office 365).

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Drag com.microsoft.office.licensing.plist to an external hard disk or USB key. On the NEW Mac: 1. Install your copy of Office 2011 on the new Mac computer 2. Click on the desktop or make sure your Mac menu is on “Finder” 3. On the Go menu, click Computer Double-click your hard disk icon. The default name will be Macintosh HD. Dec 16, 2018 Depends on what version you’re talking about. Office 365 is a little different as they monitor how many devices you’ve installed it on, because you are limited to a certain number based on your subscription. 2019-3-9  5 years ago, I bought a MacBook Pro and installed Microsoft Office 2011 on to it from a disc that cost about £100 I think. This week, I'm getting the new MacBook because my Pro is old and slow now. I was wondering how I get Microsoft Office on my new.

All software has a ‘lifecycle’. It gets developed, released, updated and eventually abandoned — usually after a new version or two has been released in the meantime. There’s nothing to stop you using software that’s been dropped by its developer in this way, but with no further updates or bug fixes in prospect, you face an uncertain future if something goes wrong with it.

Using An Old Microsoft Office License On New Mac

Take Windows XP. Despite the fact it was released all the way back in 2001, and had its support terminated back in 2014, miilions of people around the world still use it. In 2019, it was ranked the fifth most popular operating system in the world.

Anyone still using it is putting their PC's security at risk. But the same goes for anyone using an old version of Office, Microsoft's hugely popular suite of office-based applications. You can see its lifecycle here.

When is Microsoft Office support dropped?

Microsoft Office has been around for decades. Microsoft has obviously long since abandoned older versions of Office. Office 2010 had its mainstream support ended in October 2015 — a five-year lifecycle is usual for all Microsoft software. That means unless any outstanding bugs affect its (or Windows’) security, they won’t be fixed.

The clock then starts ticking for ‘extended’ support, which ends in October 2020. After that, Microsoft won’t issue updates of any kind, and Office 2010 will join Office 2007, Office 2003, Office XP, Office 97 and Office 95 in the hall of obsolete Microsoft Office suites.

Gone, but not forgotten

Using An Old Microsoft Office License On New Mac Address

‘Obsolete’ doesn’t mean ‘useless’, of course, and anecdotal evidence suggests that Office users tend to stick with what they’ve got rather than rush to upgrade to the latest version — unless they’re Office 360 subscribers, that is.

Using An Old Microsoft Office License On New Mac 2017

And by ‘anecdotal’ we mean that this piece is being written on Office 2008 for Mac — and we’re sure many of you are still using something older. Office XP (from 2002) still installs and runs perfectly well with Windows 10, for example. But is it really a good idea to keep using Office software that’s so old?

Using An Old Microsoft Office License On New Mac 2016

The simple answer, as you might expect, is ‘no’.

Is an obsolete Office still safe?

Even though you might not miss or want the new features found in later (and still supported) versions of Microsoft Office, and your version of Office 2000 (or whatever) still works perfectly well, you’re putting your PC at risk by using it.

Security weaknesses and bugs in Office, just like in Windows, can be exploited by hackers in a wide range of ways. A modern web browser and up-to-date anti-malware software might be able to intercept many kinds of attacks, but they can still miss one that’s delivered via an infected Word document attached to an email. Word 2016 may stop it in its tracks, but Word 2000, which hasn’t been updated in anyway since 2009? Probably not.

Using An Old Microsoft Office License On New Mac 2017

In fact Microsoft only fixed a serious security hole in Office 2007, 2010, 2013 in August, 2015, whereby “An attacker who successfully exploited the vulnerabilities could run arbitrary code in the context of the current user.”

Using An Old Microsoft Office License On New Mac Pro

In other words, someone could run a program on your PC without your permission, or knowledge — and that’s a very bad thing.

Using An Old Microsoft Office License On New Mac

Upgrade, switch or suffer the consequences

So while it’s easy to treat advice like this as just another way to persuade people to spend more money with Microsoft, the bottom line is simple. If your version of Office is no longer supported and updated, you’re putting your PC at risk by using it.

For now, that means if you’re still happily using Office 2007 and 2010, you can safely continue to do so until 2017 and 2020, respectively — just don’t expect any non-critical bugs to be fixed. Anyone using an older version of Office should seriously consider an upgrade, or switch to an alternative office suite than can still use Microsoft Office files.