Activate Office 2007

I don't use Office 2007 much, but due to a presentation I'm doing I am using PowerPoint 2007 here. Its a requirement for this presentation due to the template I'm forced to use.

Now my Parallels VM is a BootCamp VM. Everytime I boot into Parallels or Bootcamp, Office asks me to activate - again. I have to boot into BootCamp when I need to present the presentation due to video performance but when I edit it I'd prefer not to have to reboot.

I don't remember having to do this with Office 2003. Any ideas? Its an MSDN Office 2007 Ultimate install.

 

If you do not need to reactivate with Office 2003, that is probably because your copy of Office 2003 does not require activation in the first place.

Windows Vista and Office 2007 are different. All versions require activation. (If I am wrong please correct me. However, I think it is obvious that your copy of Office 2007 require activation to work.) Your copy of Office 2007 will demand reactivation since the hardware presented to the software under Parallels is different from under Boot Camp. There is no way out of this. If you reactivate Office 2007 inside Parallels, most probably when you boot Windows natively and run Office 2007 you will be again required to reactivate, and so on. Sooner or later Microsoft will deny you reactivation on suspicion that you are a pirate.

That is why I avoid software with activation as far as possible. I use a Corporate version of Windows XP, and Office 2000, both of which does not require activation.

 

Backwards compatible?

I have office 2007, but have not activated it yet just for this reason. I have not decided whether I want to install Vista natively or in Parallels. Once I activate, then if I want to change, I will have to jump through hoops.

Just a thought, can you save your presentation as a previous version of PPT to use another version of office? If you just need it for a presentation, then want to figure out the activation issue later ? You could always build another VM, install office and use it for (30 days?) before it starts to complain....in the mean time you could work on the activation issue...

Just a thought.

 

No, using another version of Office is not a possibility. I am presenting at MEDC and as such Microsoft *requires* the files we give them are based off the PowerPoint 2007 format using their template, etc...

Oh well. At least I can use my XP volume license to save me from that activation

 

Do you have to re-activate each and every time you switch your boot method? I have never encountered that... If it is only once per side it usually is easy to get M$ to let you 're-activate'. "Yes, I have the same machine." "No, it is only one one machine." The people run off a script.

 

Most probably every time. Parallels has done something so that you only need to activate Windows XP once more to have it running under Boot Camp and Parallels. But nothing of the sort has been done for other softwares that require activation. (And I do not expect them to do that since there are so many softwares that have activation now.)

 

Why not use the Office 2007 converters on Office XP? http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/...70-3AE9-4AEE-8F43-C6BB74CD1466&displaylang=en. Should sort your problem out.

 

Office 2003 required product activation as well.

As does Windows XP, which works "fine" with Parallels (yes, you need to activate it twice, but that's a completely minor and reasonable inconvenience).

Well, Parallels has somehow worked around the issue for Windows XP. I haven't tried installing Office 2003, so I don't know if that has the issue as well and if so, whether Parallels has worked around the problem.

But clearly it's possible for Parallels to deal with activation, since it does so for Windows XP.

Excellent suggestions, for those who have those as options. But not all of us do.

I agree that product activation is a scourge upon computer users everywhere. Pretty much all copy protection merely inconveniences legal users, without preventing piracy. Product activation of any sort is annoying, and product activation that relies on a handshake with a centralized server and which depends on hardware configuration (as is the case with Microsoft products) is among the worst out there.

But these are the facts of life, and Parallels can't expect to sell very well as a "run Windows on your Mac!" product unless it supports the software that 90%+ users are using. Office is nearly ubiquitous on Windows, and users of Parallels will expect Office 2007 to work properly without undue inconvenience.

Saying that there's no way around the issue isn't helpful. There must be a way, and the Parallels team needs to investigate and implement a solution.

 

same issue with office 2007 activation which somehow someone resolved with xp activation. as office is the main reason people run parallels this would be a good one to fix. thanks in advance for any suggestions.

 

No, not all versions require Activation. As far as I know, there is an "Enterprise" (Volume License) version of Office 2003 that does not require activation, like the Corporate version of Windows XP.

Not necessarily so simple. For one thing, from what I know the activation mechanisms used by Windows XP and Windows Vista are quite different. And Office may also use a different mechanism again. And how about other softwares that require activation such as those from Adobe? Do you really think this issue can be so easily resolved without cooperation from those companies? I don't think so. And I doubt whether those companies really will help to solve it, since it must be better to them to be able to force you to purchase a second license.

And, it may not even be so easy to "ask" for reactivation (may even have to pay his/her own phone bill). May be in the US it is easier.

I do not think we have to accept that activation is a fact of life. Those software companies want us to believe that. I certainly do not believe what they say on this issue, especially those crap from Microsoft. Remember, it is Microsoft and the other companies who put activation in their software and inconvenience us who uses virtualization software like Parallels and VMware Workstation, not Parallels. Without the presence of activation we will not have this problem, correct?

Again, the fact is, there is no way around this issue at this time if you insist on using these softwares. You can either wait until Parallels and Microsoft (and others) cooperate to "solve" this issue, or if possible you can search for and switch to alternative products that work without these inconveniences.

That is my own opinion, anyway.

 

True. I made the assumption, possibly incorrect, that because the previous poster wasn't using the Corporate version of XP, they also did not have a similar license for Office 2003.

A second license for Office 2007 won't help the issue, since you can only have one license installed at a time. I disagree with your assessment that the companies have no incentive to assist. Even if buying a second license would address the problem, it's not true that all (or even most) users will select that option as the solution of choice.

I am in the process of trying to address this issue in parallel (no pun intended). It may be that I can actually get some help from Microsoft on the issue. I have to say, given that I have had exactly ZERO response from Parallels (not even an auto-reply) in the nearly two months I've been trying to resolve this issue, I'm feeling less and less inclined to waste my money on their product.

As far as the question as to whether the problem can be easily solved...I never meant to suggest that solving it would be easy. But I do expect it to be solved. Parallels is sold as a way to run Windows and the attendant applications under Mac OS. It's useless unless it can actually run those applications.

If I wanted a product that had a limited number of software programs available for it, where I had to select the programs based not on which one best addresses my needs but rather on which ones actually exist, I'd buy a Mac. Oh, no...wait. I did. That's why I'm stuck in this situation in the first place.

No, we don't. I agree, and we should continue to strive to do what we can to convince software companies to give it up. However, in the meantime I have work to do. It's well and good to think about the blissful future in which we don't have to deal with product activation, but I need to use my computer today and getting the Parallels company to fix their product so that it actually works with the programs people actually use under Windows is likely to be a more direct and expedient solution to the problem.

That is correct. However, Parallels is in the business of solving problems. I will also point out that Parallels itself uses a form of activation. It's not nearly as problematic as what's causing the trouble here, but it's still an issue.

For example, I have been trying to figure this issue out on my own, seeing as how there doesn't appear to be a single person at Parallels interested in responding to my queries. But the trial key I've been using to test Parallels has expired and until a new version is released for download it appears I won't be able to even use Parallels for testing.

In other words, in spite of the non-existent support from Parallels, I am willing to go above and beyond to try to diagnose and resolve the issue on my own (including negotiating with Microsoft customer support to see if they can help from their end...something Parallels ought to be doing instead). But because Parallels has included a variety of copy protection in their product, I am impeded from actually accomplishing that.

I would feel a lot better about absolving Parallels from having any obligation to address this issue if they themselves did not engage in behavior very similar to the behavior on the part of other companies that leads to the issue in the first place. Copy protection has never stopped piracy...it only ever gets in the way of legitimate users. People using pirated copies of software, they don't bother with product activation or any of the various license verification means, and they never run into these problems as a consequence.

 

The fact is for me that I CHOOSE to use OS X software instead of Office. In this case, I use Keynote and Pages over Office. I use Apple Mail, AB, and iCal instead of Outlook.

But I have a presentation FOR Microsoft at a Microsoft event that requires PowerPoint 2007 and its file format. I do not have a choice in that matter. I have a volume license XP/Vista due to my status with MS, but not an Office volume license (not for 2007 at least, I do have one for XP).

So Activation is only an issue with the one piece of software I have to use occasionally until May.

 

I've been searching for a while because I'm experiencing this issue (but with a different MS product.) There are a ton of threads regarding activation, but most are on other topics.

I revive this month-old thread to ask, is this still a problem or has it been fixed? Is a fix planned?

 

Just installed office 2007, looks like its still a problem

 

I've been doing some searching around on the subject and not finding much. I did see one post where the user stated even-though you need to reactivate, there does not seem to be a limit on reactivation. Any truth in this? I'm using the student edition which allows me to activate Office 2007 on 3 computers. So far I have it activated on my MacPro under boot-camp and my MacBook under boot camp. If I activate on my MacPro under Parallels will this kill off my last license? I'm thinking not as the screen I get under Parallels is asking me to reactivate not to activate. Any thoughts?

 

You're best off calling MS and asking. I know my app can only be activated 10 times.

 

Just like with XP and Office 2003, there are Volume License versions of Vista and Office 2007 which do not require activation.

 

For Vista, at least, that is definitely not true. Even the Volume License versions of Vista require activation every 180 days, as far as I know.

 

Here's how to fix this

If you activated your copy of MS Office while running Windows within Boot Camp, you will have to reactivate within the Parallels VM. If you want this reactivation to be "sticky" and apply to both Boot Camp and the Parallels VM, the easy fix is to change the MAC address that the Parallels VM uses to be the same as the actual hardware MAC address. Simply open Parallels (but do not start the VM). Go to the Edit> Virtual Machine menu Select Network Adapter, choose Advanced and type in the hardware MAC address. (You can find the hardware address by going to System Preferences, Network, Ethernet.)

This works for me for all the Windows apps that I have that require activation. They all appear to decide whether or not the computer they are running on has changed based on the MAC address. This makes sense since that is one thing that is guaranteed to be unique. Windows itself is a little trickier but Parallels solved that one for us already.

regards
Doug Dickerson

 

Ah, if that is so, then this is a very useful tip. Thank you.

However, future activation mechanisms may change and this may no longer work. In order to avoid any problems related to activation I will continue to avoid softwares with activation mechanisms. We should show these companies that these mechanisms are not welcomed and vote with our wallet, especially in this era of virtualization software.