My PC's motherboard died. I scavenged a replacement from a spare (non-functioning) PC, installed it, reinstalled Windows XP and Microsoft Office 2003. Easy peasy. Up and running again, or so I thought. 
But, no, Office required re-authentication, a simple 54 digit code from Microsoft. And Microsoft were intransigent on this. Imagine a voice from the sub-continent: "Sir, that software is no longer supported by Microsoft. You must buy Windows 7 and Office 2009. Have a good day, sir."
What baloney! What a blatant, opportunistic money grab. 
So, I am considering moving to Open Office, an open-source software equivalent to Microsofts' suite. I see that Open Office was discussed briefly here 11 months ago, and would appreciate current opinion on its functionality, mainly for documents and presentations.
Here's a link to the discussion last February:-
www.seabreeze.com.au/forums/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=47954
(P.S. 100th post. Do I get a letter from Laurie?)
Im in the industry mate it works fine but you may have problems intergrating it with a calender and the like.
But as for being able to open and save files to send in office format it works fine.
You should still be able to reauthenticate the software even if they don't support it.
The "not supporting" bit only indicates that they are no longer doing bug fixes etc on it.
Not sure how you would go about getting it re authenticated though. Maybe ring them up and give them a serve.
I guess this is why they tell you to "BACK UP YOUR SYSTEM".
you can get 500Gb disks for just over a hundred bucks that will do the job and will save you a s***load of grief in the long run.
All sounds tres familiar.
Have put it into the cant be farked basket and will see what develops there. Life is too short to be ranting at a home puter screen. I do that 9-5 already.
i purchased open office six months ago i think $63 bucks considering exchange rates for a lifetime. i saved the file to a usb key, upgraded to windows 7 reinstalled it off the key, works just as good and i can stick my middle finger up to bill.
im always weary of being stung on the net but seems ive been done....i didnt have microsoft office nor did i want to buy it and needed something to open a file. Im computer illiterate and I am the one they are after. Just read forum.openoffice.org/en/forum/viewtopic.php?p=51698 oh well sixty bucks is better than 600
I do my temperature charts in excel, which has a nice separate page for the chart, unfortunately I can't get open office to do this, the chart comes out much smaller embedded in the data page.
The other strange thing that's happened, I think because I've used both applications to modify and save a spread sheet. Is the dates have change,d they've all gone forward a few years, this is a real pain.
So be a bit careful, when migrating stuff over from one to the other. Would be a good idea to have a back up, so you can test what happens.
Saying this I'm also dual booting between XP and linux, XL in XP and open office in linux, that may also be a factor.
You can always go Google - got your email, calendar and contacts, a messenger client, document, presentation and spreadsheet tools (google docs). All free, all through a browser from anywhere. Concurrent edits - not sure if M$ Office or Open Office can claim that!
Take the plunge and go get open office, I've been using it ever since MS word introduced that animated dancing paperclip. MS Office hogs your computer resources and will slow your computer down. Open Office does everything I need and exports well between operating systems and other word processing/spreadsheet/powerpoint programs. It's mature, loads quickly and it's free.
Does this mean my pirated version of MS Office 97 Pro is no good no more??
I'd like to send a musical message to Uncle Bill :-
Ooohwhoo, Lover , ....lover, lover, You don't treat me no good no mo'.
while we're in smug mode....
thunderbird (free mail client) is the duck nuts! 
has anyone used the latest version of open orifice? seems like some important improvements.
