Travel Technology - How can I recover MS Office

I used the backup utility with Windows XP and backed up my wife's laptop before I installed a bigger hard drive. I can find every disc but the MS Office discs and now I am not sure how to recover this from the back up file. Anyone have advice? I did a complete backup to my external hard drive.

www.openoffice.org

The normally way to do an upgrade is to use a cloning program such as the Apricorn EZ Gig2 or Acronis True Image. This gives you the exact image as before except on a larger disk.

You may need a USB drive housing and many will need the new drive be in the HDD slot. Many computer can be set to boot from the old drive in the USB housing. For IBM/Lenovo Thinkpads, press F12 at boot time allows you to select the boot device.

Do you have the CD key? You can download a 60day free trial of office from their website. If you don't have the key it will give you a chance to find the key.

I used the backup utility with Windows XP and backed up my wife's laptop before I installed a bigger hard drive. I can find every disc but the MS Office discs and now I am not sure how to recover this from the back up file. Anyone have advice? I did a complete backup to my external hard drive.

The Windows XP backup utility only backs up your data files and settings, but not complete applications as far as I know, so I don't think it will be possible to restore MS office from just the backup that you did using MS backup, sorry :(

However, If you still have the old drive that you removed from your wife's laptop and you haven't wiped it, then you could restore everything you had before (including MS office) from there, using one of the cloning programs as mentioned in another post and cloning all the data (and applications) from the old drive to the new one directly.

Even if it was on the backup image (and from the previous post, it might not be), there would be no way to restore it to the new hard drive.

Do you still have the Certificate of Authenticity? http://www.microsoft.com/resources/howtotell/content.aspx?pg=coa&displaylang=en

It has the product key on it. For a small fee, you might be able to request replacement media from Microsoft (or, more likely, the company you bought the laptop from).

Do you still have the old drive?

If so put it back, get a usb enclosure and use the disk cloning software. Apricorn EZ GIG is one, there are others. I have an apricorn enclosure and have used it many times. The enclosure probably came with something.

Take the new cloned drive, put that in the laptop and you are good to go.

Restoring from a backup without the orig install disks is never an easy task for the microsoft products.

I used the backup utility with Windows XP and backed up my wife's laptop before I installed a bigger hard drive. I can find every disc but the MS Office discs and now I am not sure how to recover this from the back up file. Anyone have advice? I did a complete backup to my external hard drive.

This is the hard way to do it.

Spring for the cost of an external enclosure & disk copying software. Copy the drive over.

The problem with cloning the drive is that you lose any software that was installed on the new computer (including the operating system), you lose all the drivers for the hardware on the new computer, and you'll be lucky if the cloned drive even works due to the significant differences in the hardware between the computers.

Borrow a program disc from a friend.

The problem with cloning the drive is that you lose any software that was installed on the new computer (including the operating system), you lose all the drivers for the hardware on the new computer, and you'll be lucky if the cloned drive even works due to the significant differences in the hardware between the computers.
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True if your upgrading to a new computer, but in this case the OP is upgrading a drive in his existing computer so cloning should work perfectly.

Not the issue here as it's an upgrade to a current machine. Indeed I would want to clone the drive to make sure I got all those drivers and the rest and all the registry entries would be intact, etc.

I would not clone between different machines, but for a hard drive upgrade it's by far the easiest way to go if the current drive has no software or OS related issues.

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I would not clone between different machines, but for a hard drive upgrade it's by far the easiest way to go if the current drive has no software or OS related issues.

Yes, cloning when upgrading machine is much more difficult. But it is do able to a more limited extend. One must have all the driver before hand. Same brand and lots of experience help too. For instance, I upgraded from a Thinkpad A31 to a Thinkpad T42. The upgrade worked with just a few missing drivers. I upgrade my wife's A31 to a R52, one driver kept blue screening. In the end I left off a driver to make it work.

Since the OP is just upgrading to a larger HDD in the same machine, cloning is the easiest.

The problem with cloning the drive is that you lose any software that was installed on the new computer (including the operating system), you lose all the drivers for the hardware on the new computer, and you'll be lucky if the cloned drive even works due to the significant differences in the hardware between the computers.

Borrow a program disc from a friend.

I tend to want to keep the factory image too. So I simply set it aside and buy an extra disk. I keep the old disk or machine around a while too just in case something goes wrong with the new HDD or computer.

Do you have the CD key? You can download a 60day free trial of office from their website. If you don't have the key it will give you a chance to find the key.

this sounds great, but I have never had luck with this in practice. Not only are there many versions of office, and the key and the version have to match perfectly, but also there are DL versions, and RETAIL versions, and ONLINE ORDER versions, all of the SAME office version and the key wouldn't work across all.

It really is a bioch how sticky they can get.

I'd try to find the exact version, or a version on ebay if you can.

Or spend 80 bucks and buy a new copy.

[Though I like post #2: openoffice.org, which by the way I just downloaded yesterday, version 3. It's really nice.]

www.openoffice.org

I tried that once and found it terribly lacking with regard to Office. I'm not one to say good things about Microsoft, in general, but I will give credit where credit is due. For simple things, OpenOffice was OK. Go a little out of bounds (and I usually do) and it was not good at all.

Still goes back to "you get what you pay for."

Cheers.

The problem with cloning the drive is that you lose any software that was installed on the new computer (including the operating system), you lose all the drivers for the hardware on the new computer, and you'll be lucky if the cloned drive even works due to the significant differences in the hardware between the computers.

Borrow a program disc from a friend.

This was a hard drive upgrade, not a machine replacement.

After a replacement you have to do it the hard way.

if you are trying to get your keys from a computer for all your programs, you should try running Belarc Advisor, which gives a full printout of them. you can then use them if you need to reinstall.

it can be found here: http://www.belarc.com/free_download.html

www.openoffice.org

While in Hong Kong last year, openoffice.org was a life-saver. The computer I was doing schoolwork on did not have Office.

On openoffice, yes, Microsoft Office is a very polished product, but I'll emphasize again that the new version 3.0 is far better than earlier versions.

But I'd still just pay the 80 bucks and be done with it.

True if your upgrading to a new computer, but in this case the OP is upgrading a drive in his existing computer so cloning should work perfectly.

You are absolutely correct, of course.

That's what I get for answering technical questions in the middle of the night when I have been drinking.

But I'd still just pay the 80 bucks and be done with it.

I have not seen a retail copy of Office that legitimately sells for $80 in quite some time. I think buying new would be a much more expensive proposition.

I have not seen a retail copy of Office that legitimately sells for $80 in quite some time. I think buying new would be a much more expensive proposition.

MS Office 2007 Student and Home Edition sells for $74.99 on Amazon and was selling for less from Office Depot and Costco around Christmas.

http://www.amazon.com/Microsoft-Office-Home-Student-2007/dp/B000HCZ8EO/ref=pd_bbs_1?ie=UTF8&s=software&qid=1231391895&sr=8-1

MS Office 2007 Student and Home Edition sells for $74.99 on Amazon and was selling for less from Office Depot and Costco around Christmas.

http://www.amazon.com/Microsoft-Office-Home-Student-2007/dp/B000HCZ8EO/ref=pd_bbs_1?ie=UTF8&s=software&qid=1231391895&sr=8-1

Which will accomplish nothing if you need Outlook.

I seem to be missing something here. If you owned a legitimate version of Office and lost the CD, why not buy a replacement CD from Microsoft?

How to order a replacement CD for Microsoft Office (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/302822#appliesto)

MS Office 2007 Student and Home Edition sells for $74.99 on Amazon and was selling for less from Office Depot and Costco around Christmas.

http://www.amazon.com/Microsoft-Office-Home-Student-2007/dp/B000HCZ8EO/ref=pd_bbs_1?ie=UTF8&s=software&qid=1231391895&sr=8-1

Good to know; I didn't realize that they had opened up the student pricing to non-educational channels.

Good to know; I didn't realize that they had opened up the student pricing to non-educational channels.

I bought Office 2003 a few years back at MicroCenter, and it was the Student edition, with no disclaimers whatsoever. (well, not that I looked all that hard- but no requirement of educational status was asked :))

Cheers.

Good to know; I didn't realize that they had opened up the student pricing to non-educational channels.

The "student" restriction (i.e. ID required or sold only in campus bookstore) was quietly dropped during the life of Office 2003. I bought the Office 2003 student edition only after I had read this in the WSJ and the article had a quote from Microsoft.

Wish they had kept Outlook with 2007.

FWIW, backup restore from one drive to another on the same machine does restore everything - including applications. You just need to include the "system settings."

The normal procedure:

1) Backup the old drive including system settings. You can actually do this to the old or new drive if you have the room.
2) configure the new drive as the boot drive (C:\)
3) Install windows (same version up to and including service packs).
4) Restore (including system settings).
5) It's back.

There is a difference between a STUDENT and TEACHER version, sold in places like staples for 99-129$, and the EDUCATIONAL ULITIMATE UPGRADE which is 59.99$, but only available if you have an .edu email address to which you can have the registration email sent to.

AND, if you are cheating on this, they reserve the right to come after you.

My son lost his CDs once. Since he had registered with MS, he called them up. THey asked a bunch of questions and I think he paid about 10.00 for new CDs.
Anybody know if the old "xcopy" command still works at cmd prompt? I used that once long ago to clone a drive. I don't even know if hard drives have "master" and "slave" settings anymore. Have not done that in a few years.

My son lost his CDs once. Since he had registered with MS, he called them up. THey asked a bunch of questions and I think he paid about 10.00 for new CDs.
Anybody know if the old "xcopy" command still works at cmd prompt? I used that once long ago to clone a drive. I don't even know if hard drives have "master" and "slave" settings anymore. Have not done that in a few years.

xcopy won't move the registry, nor some of the exotic unreal items Windows creates.

Master/Slave is a feature of IDE drives. SATA doesn't have them. IDE's are on the way out but still exist.

I haven't been download free MS office from my computer at home. So can you guys need my help where I can find all MS Office 08? I am still looking for which the program is that. I have my computer at home but, it was Windows Vista. So could you please find out where I can buy something newest MS Office at Office Max or Staples? Let me know if you found one for me. Thanks for your concerns.