Office Basic 2007
 

So I promised my Mom I'd buy her a new computer. Dude, she's getting a Dell... the only options I have for prebundled office are Works, Works 2006, Home and Student 2007, Standard, Small Business, or Professional.

What I really want to get her is Office Basic 2007. So I go about looking for it and find out it is only available as a pre-installed OEM product... what gives? why would MS make the product most people are going to want for home unavailable for retail purchase?

So I look further and find that it is available in license only form on a bunch of sites. Then I find this:

Office Basic 2007 CD and License

Is there any reason I should be wary of buying this?

Does anyone know a better place or way to buy Office Basic 2007?

Office Basic is only sold as an OEM package, where you by the media kit and the license seperately. I have never dealt with the company you linked to so I don't know what they are actually doing or how reputable they are.

Personally, although it would be about $20 more, purchase the OEM license and media kit seperately from NewEgg. That way I am sure I am getting a legitamite license and a real (not a CD-R) MS CD.

Worst case, it's not a legitamite license, a duplicated CD, and it won't let you activate it and you are out the $183.

Best case, everything is legitamite and you saved yourself $20 over buying the individual pieces.

Try here:

http://froogle.google.com/froogle?q=...&sa=N&start=40

yeah, I don't see any links to Office Basic... thanks though, that was thoughtful...

The Home and Student version of Office 2007 standard is under $150 just about everywhere, staples, office depot, all the usual places if that's what you are looking for.

Costco has Office Home/Student (has the basics except for Outlook) for $122.22:

http://www.costco.com/Browse/Product...rodid=11191375

well, the whole point was getting Outlook... she doesn't do much except email and documents so I wanted her to have Outlook and Word, Excel in the odd case someone sent her an excel file.

Home and Student doesn't have Outlook, Standard has more than she will really need. Basic would be perfect.

Can I recommend that if it's Outlook you're after, stick with Office 2003? I have had absolutely nothing but problems with Outlook 2007. Lockups, mail that disappears from the outbox, deleting messages from the inbox without reason, crashes, connection errors, you name it.

The rest of 2007 is pretty nice but Outlook is so bad that I'm running 2003 on Vista.

revised......


found the following...........

http://royaldiscount.com/miof20baoem.html (be sure to read the description)

hope that helps

What does OEM stand for??

Thanks

original equipment manufacturer, basically its a reseller. It's normally cheaper because the original manufacturer doesn't need to provide the support. ie: buy a PC from Dell and have a windows question, you call Dell support not Microsoft.

www.computersworth.com has Office Basic 2007 OEM for $173. I've bought software from them in the past and found them good, cheap and reliable.

OEM versions of software are usually just a CD - no fancy box or manuals. But of course, Office hasn't shipped with anything resembling a manual for years now. If you really want a retail box, ComputersWorth has it for $195.

P.S. I don't think there is an Office 2007 "Standard" version...I think it's Basic, then Small Business, with Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Publisher and Outlook; then Professional.

For this OpenOffice would be free and flawless. Why spend money. Even if you wanted to spend money Outlook 2007 is pretty but more unstable ie more tech support work for you to do when she ends up callling you to ask why Outlook is freezing.

Think about turning her on to the Google gmail, calendar and Docs & Spreadsheets apps.