New to me MacBook Air 2017 had office installed - can I resurrect it??

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Hi all,

newbie here.
In the house we have a macbook pro (son) and an iPad user (me).
Plus a number of Windows machines as usual.
But we are not OSX skilled.
Just got a 2017 Air for my wife yesterday.

Seller (not OSX skilled either) has understandably removed her user, and I think removed all the data and home folder.
OK with that.
She had Office purchased (ie not 365 pay monthly) and running.
It is no longer there, and I guess other Apps she may have had are not there, as we only have about 17 in the ribbon, so back to default I guess.

Question.
Is it possible, or definite, that the MS Office licence keys are on the machine?
Does MS licence to the user, or to the device ID (as it does with Windows)?
How do I check?

Thanks in advance...
 
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as we only have about 17 in the ribbon,
What does that mean? What ribbon? Are you referring to the Dock, which is normally across the bottom of the screen, or something else? Not all applications on the machine are in the Dock. Applications are in the Applications folder in the user's account directory. If she had installed Office for all users of the machine, it should appear in your wife's home folder under Applications. As for whether or not it is legal to run, that would depend on whether or not she had kept a copy for herself, or if she actually transferred the software to you. I'm not a lawyer, so maybe someone who is will chime with clarity.

So, look in your wife's home folder, under Applications and see if Office is there.

Of more importance is the question of whether or not the seller followed these directions: What to do before you sell, give away, or trade in your Mac - Apple Support

If she did not, you could have problems later on.
 
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If you need M$, then you will have to purchase it. You can usually get used versions on eBay or Amazon, just be cautious, ands read seller reviews.

On another note, this has been recommended on this forum quite often, www.freeoffice.com - FreeOffice for Windows, Mac, Linux and Android. It’s supposedly a good alternative to M$ Office, and may even be the most compatible with the documents that come from Office.


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IWT


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A warm welcome to Mac-Forums, Airscrew and thank you for your post

Seller has understandably removed her user, and I think removed all the data and home folder.

So, as Jake said in post #3 - if your friend did not follow the procedure outlined in his Link, and only deleted her home folder and personal documents etc, then that MacBook Air could still be linked to the seller's Apple ID and that could cause significant problems for your wife. Apple would still see the Air as belonging to another Apple ID with considerable limitations on how your wife could use the Mac.

As, hopefully, the seller is known to you, she can help you sort this out. If I've got this wrong, I apologise. Otherwise, come back to us and we can guide you (and the seller) on how to remedy this.

Ian

PS Any apps left on the Mac, including Microsoft Office, belong to the seller.
 
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Thanks to you all.
I have learnt a few things.

The device had no user, and started at the select a country quick install page etcetc.
So the user, data, and any Apps were deleted. As you would expect for a device sold on.
I am fine with this, I just wanted to understand.
We have Libre on the PC and Ubuntu devices, and downloaded FreeOffice to the MacBook today.
Will purchase MS Office for mac when we decide which route to take (ie family deal).

Thanks again.
 
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Airscrew, the fact that it acted that way at start up does NOT mean the previous owner did what is needed to de-register it against her Apple ID. There are endless stories of "but it was new to me" when Apple says it's registered against a different Apple ID. Those stories sometimes end well, if the original owner will do what is needed, but sometimes not so well if the previous owner won't, or isn't known. It's tied in with the serial number and several other ways Apple can identify it over the internet.

If you are happy, fine. But if Apple suddenly rejects you as the user, you will have a clue why it happened.
 
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...PS Any apps left on the Mac, including Microsoft Office, belong to the seller.

It is pretty well settled in the law that software licensed to one person (not a business) can be sold to another person, even if the EULA (end user licensing agreement) says otherwise. The seller has to erase all copies of the software so that they retain no copies, and they have to give up all original disks that it came on and licensing codes/keys.
Court Once Again Confirms Right Of First Sale For Software: You Own It, Not License It | Techdirt

It sounds likely that the original poster might find Microsoft Office in either the System or User Applications folder. However, if it isn't working, and the seller didn't give them the license key, they may be SOL.
 

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Very useful legal advice, Randy. Thank you.

I presume that this would not apply to a subscription model (say Office 365) - or would that be transferable/saleable too?

And is the judgment USA only or more or less anywhere, like the UK?

Ian
 
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I presume that this would not apply to a subscription model (say Office 365) - or would that be transferable/saleable too?

I don't know offhand about the transferability of a subscription. Assuming that a subscription isn't for service that is unique or personalized, i.e. it is fungible, my wild guess is that it should be transferable.

However, an Office 365 subscription comes with a license for a new copy of Office 2019. I would assume that that license would be transferable just like any other personal software license.


And is the judgment USA only or more or less anywhere, like the UK?
I don't know what the law is in the U.K. Since the U.S. legal system is loosely based on the U.K. system, the two are often the same, but not always. I'm afraid that I can't research it for you because my legal research service doesn't include U.K. law.
 

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Thank you, Randy. As ever.

Ian
 
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Just a thought, but why would you want to transfer Office 365? It's a subscription service that can be ended at any time. So the seller stops and the buyer starts his own subscription. If any licenses are included (and I'm not sure that is the case, I don't remember getting any stand alone copy of Word with my Office365) then the buyer will get the license with his/her new subscription. I'm not seeing any reason to even try it.
 
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Just a thought, but why would you want to transfer Office 365? It's a subscription service that can be ended at any time. So the seller stops and the buyer starts his own subscription.
Because a subscription is paid for up-front for a set period of time. If you still have time left on your subscription, and the source won't refund your money, it should at least be transferable.


If any licenses are included (and I'm not sure that is the case, I don't remember getting any stand alone copy of Word with my Office365) then the buyer will get the license with his/her new subscription. I'm not seeing any reason to even try it.

The copy of Word that you have came with Office 2019, which you received when you signed up for Office365. Unfortunately, I understand that it becomes partially or completely bricked if you cancel your Office365 subscription.
 
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Because a subscription is paid for up-front for a set period of time. If you still have time left on your subscription, and the source won't refund your money, it should at least be transferable.
Ah, I pay monthly so I can cancel when I want and not have any remnant of any size. US%7/month is not a huge expense to have all of the Office products on our machines.

The copy of Word that you have came with Office 2019, which you received when you signed up for Office365. Unfortunately, I understand that it becomes partially or completely bricked if you cancel your Office365 subscription.
OK, that may be how it works technically, but I would not say that was a stand alone copy. It's what I paid for, a subscription that works until I cancel it. It doesn't have to be downloaded from some super server in the cloud, it's resident on my machine, but it does "phone home" to make sure I'm an authorized user. It even works without an Internet connection so it must, when it phones home, get the expiration date for my current rental period and will work until then. So I would not say that I got a license to Office 2019 at all. Nor would I say it gets bricked. It just ceases to execute when my subscription ends, which is totally reasonable and exactly what I signed up for it to do. It was never represented to me as a "stand alone" copy of the software. In fact, you can still pay a single license fee instead of the subscription if you want to go that way.
 
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Randy, in thinking about it more, what I would say is that the Office365 software is NOT fully lifetime licensed, but fully functional. It's licensed during my subscription and that license is cancelled when I stop the subscription. At that point the functionally ends because the subscription ended. So, the software is fully functional but not licensed for lifetime as is the purchased software.
 

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