Microsoft Office and MAKs
I do most of my work on OS X, and that includes all my word processing. So the world of Microsoft Office's rather odd volume licensing scheme was, up to now, something I was blissfully unaware of.
Recently though I had to do some IT work for a small company. They said they wanted their company's MS Office installed on some new laptops they had purchased. One problem: they had lost the installation CD. But they had kept a note of their licence key (it was, according to the scribbled note left by the no-longer-working-there IT bod, a "MAK key for Office 2010 Professional").
Easy, I thought. No doubt you seasoned MS folks are shaking your head at my ignorance, but on Mac and Linux having no discs is usually a benefit - they are always out-of-date anyway. Get your installers from the internet.
So off I went and downloaded a trial version of Office 2010. All I needed to do was enter the key and it'd work, right? Wrong. "Your licence key is invalid." Hmm.
I did a bit of reading and realised that there were a few different versions of Office. (Ok, I dimly knew this, but had assumed the licence key you entered was what made the difference. I berated myself a little for not thinking of this before downloading the multi-meg installer.) My reading suggested that MAK keys wouldn't work with the usual common-or-garden Office. I (probably) needed Professional Plus.
I downloaded Professional Plus from Microsoft's Technet -- not without a goodly while spent hunting for it. An hour later I was ready to try the licence key again. (The company's broadband was not the fastest.) It was still invalid.
I ploughed through the usual semi-literate forums. (Sample post: "pleas sned me all keys for office now") Somebody suggested "Microsoft Office Standard" was also used in the MAK programme. Despite the note I had saying "Professional" I decided this was worth a go. Locating Standard proved a challenge (again) but eventually Google turned it up -- and in 32 and 64bit versions to boot.
Another hour later I had 32bit Office "Standard". And the key was still being rejected. Grrrr.
I was 99% certain the company hadn't used 64bit Office, but I decided to try it anyway.
Another hour later: no, they hadn't.
At this point I began to wonder if the key really was the right one, so did some more reading. I was hoping Microsoft had some kind of online key validator I could use, but instead they have a rather less convenient tool called VAMT. I downloaded and installed this. Yes, it told me, my key was valid and still had plenty "remaining activation counts" left to it (these are finite, apparently).
It also helpfully told me that the version of Office it was meant to unlock was "StandardVL". You'd think Standard was the same as Standard VL, but apparently it is not. Ok, progress: I just needed to find Standard VL (Volume Licensing, this stands for, Google told me). However, an hour's Googling later I had drawn a big fat blank on this.
What's more, the plethora of DMCA takedown notices littered throughout my search results seemed to suggest Microsoft were trying very hard to keep things this way. Why? I had a perfectly valid, legally acquired key. I (well, the company, to be precise) had paid to use the software. I just needed to download it. Sheesh. The annoying thing is I'm sure this doesn't inconvenience the actual pirates in the slightest.
Finally, in some rather disreputable forum (I was getting desperate by this stage) I found mention of a tool called Office 2010 Installer Channel Switcher by stannieman. Again, I had to play hide-and-seek with the big G, but eventually found a version of this not yet destroyed by MS.
It sucks in the Office "retail" (ie downloadable) installer and spits out an honest-to-goodness writable-to-CD ISO install disk. Best of all in doing this it tweaks it so that it's no longer "retail" but is the elusive "VL" version.
It works! Office installed. Afterwards I could put in the MAK key and it validates. Woohoo! At last! Hours later!! stannieman I salute you, and I hope trained assassins from MS haven't taken you out.
Let me just reiterate that I had to follow this rigmarole not because I was pirating the Office suite: my key was valid and the company I was trying to help had paid MS dearly for it.
Moral of the story: if trying to install Office beware. It's not as simple as it seems.
Recently though I had to do some IT work for a small company. They said they wanted their company's MS Office installed on some new laptops they had purchased. One problem: they had lost the installation CD. But they had kept a note of their licence key (it was, according to the scribbled note left by the no-longer-working-there IT bod, a "MAK key for Office 2010 Professional").
Easy, I thought. No doubt you seasoned MS folks are shaking your head at my ignorance, but on Mac and Linux having no discs is usually a benefit - they are always out-of-date anyway. Get your installers from the internet.
So off I went and downloaded a trial version of Office 2010. All I needed to do was enter the key and it'd work, right? Wrong. "Your licence key is invalid." Hmm.
I did a bit of reading and realised that there were a few different versions of Office. (Ok, I dimly knew this, but had assumed the licence key you entered was what made the difference. I berated myself a little for not thinking of this before downloading the multi-meg installer.) My reading suggested that MAK keys wouldn't work with the usual common-or-garden Office. I (probably) needed Professional Plus.
I downloaded Professional Plus from Microsoft's Technet -- not without a goodly while spent hunting for it. An hour later I was ready to try the licence key again. (The company's broadband was not the fastest.) It was still invalid.
I ploughed through the usual semi-literate forums. (Sample post: "pleas sned me all keys for office now") Somebody suggested "Microsoft Office Standard" was also used in the MAK programme. Despite the note I had saying "Professional" I decided this was worth a go. Locating Standard proved a challenge (again) but eventually Google turned it up -- and in 32 and 64bit versions to boot.
Another hour later I had 32bit Office "Standard". And the key was still being rejected. Grrrr.
I was 99% certain the company hadn't used 64bit Office, but I decided to try it anyway.
Another hour later: no, they hadn't.
At this point I began to wonder if the key really was the right one, so did some more reading. I was hoping Microsoft had some kind of online key validator I could use, but instead they have a rather less convenient tool called VAMT. I downloaded and installed this. Yes, it told me, my key was valid and still had plenty "remaining activation counts" left to it (these are finite, apparently).
It also helpfully told me that the version of Office it was meant to unlock was "StandardVL". You'd think Standard was the same as Standard VL, but apparently it is not. Ok, progress: I just needed to find Standard VL (Volume Licensing, this stands for, Google told me). However, an hour's Googling later I had drawn a big fat blank on this.
What's more, the plethora of DMCA takedown notices littered throughout my search results seemed to suggest Microsoft were trying very hard to keep things this way. Why? I had a perfectly valid, legally acquired key. I (well, the company, to be precise) had paid to use the software. I just needed to download it. Sheesh. The annoying thing is I'm sure this doesn't inconvenience the actual pirates in the slightest.
Finally, in some rather disreputable forum (I was getting desperate by this stage) I found mention of a tool called Office 2010 Installer Channel Switcher by stannieman. Again, I had to play hide-and-seek with the big G, but eventually found a version of this not yet destroyed by MS.
It sucks in the Office "retail" (ie downloadable) installer and spits out an honest-to-goodness writable-to-CD ISO install disk. Best of all in doing this it tweaks it so that it's no longer "retail" but is the elusive "VL" version.
It works! Office installed. Afterwards I could put in the MAK key and it validates. Woohoo! At last! Hours later!! stannieman I salute you, and I hope trained assassins from MS haven't taken you out.
Let me just reiterate that I had to follow this rigmarole not because I was pirating the Office suite: my key was valid and the company I was trying to help had paid MS dearly for it.
Moral of the story: if trying to install Office beware. It's not as simple as it seems.
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