Forum Discussion

crcr's avatar
crcr
Explorer
Feb 04, 2020

How best to upgrade Microsoft Office 2010?

This question is about Microsoft Office. I mostly use Google Docs and Google Sheets, as opposed to Microsoft Office. For my usage anyway, they work just as well or better than M-soft Office because they include the bonus that I can easily access any Google Docs I have created, from the cloud on my laptop or my phone when we are on a camping trip, something that I can't do with my M-soft Office 2010.
FYI, my PC is a Windows 10 machine.

I am still using Microsoft Office 2010 on my PC, because it serves my limited personal needs. However, I volunteer some of my time with my church and in that capacity, I regularly receive Microsoft Office docs via email. The problem is that M-soft Office 2010 won't open the docs I am sent that are created with more current versions of M-soft Office. Sometimes by forwarding to my Gmail account, any emails I receive that have M-soft docs attached, I can open said M-Office docs there, but unfortunately this does not work every time.

So for reasons stated I would like to upgrade my Microsoft Office. But because it is of limited use to me, I want to upgrade as economically as possible. I also would prefer not to lose my current M-soft Office docs on my PC, although I might consider sacrificing that option. So in that regard, I have been shopping around, but am not sure which way to go, so I am posting here in hopes of some relevant advice.

Three Options I am considering:

1) Pay $90 at Costco.com for a 15 month subscription to Office 365, which of course would have to be paid annually. Since I use M-Soft Office so little, this option is not very attractive at all.

2) Buy M-soft Office 2019 Pro on eBay for prices ranging from $5.99 for a download to $55 for a DVD. At the second link below, I see M-Office 2016 sells for the same price as M-soft Office 2019, and 2016 way outsells 2019! Why is that? And which is preferable, the 2016 or 2019 version? Click here

2016 option

If I were to go this route, will the cheap downloads work, or is it wiser to buy the DVD? Does anyone have any idea how long Office 2016 or 2019 would be compatible with ever-newer versions of M-soft Office?

3) Buy M-soft Office 365 downloads on ebay for as little as $5. I see at this link: Click here

I'm hoping some on this forum might have some suggestions as to which of the stated options would likely work the best and yet be an economical choice. Thanks in advance for any suggestions!
  • crcr's avatar
    crcr
    Explorer
    Feb 19, 2020
    jodeb720 wrote:
    crcr,

    There's a company called Techsoup. find out if your church has a relationship with them. They are a coordinator between large corporations (e.g. Microsoft) and non profits.

    They allow non profits (like your church) to obtain, for free a license for MS Office 365 - and Microsoft gets to write off the full MSRP of the software with the IRS. It's a win/win for everybody.

    Check with your church and find out if they have an account.

    They can request a license for Office 365, for free, and it only takes a couple of days for the license to be provisioned by Techsoup.org.

    I had 25 people at my church, I got a copy of Windows server, multiple copies of Windows 10, and office 365 for all the staff (both Mac's and PC's).

    The church benefitted because it was all legal licenses, they paid almost nothing for the 'affiliation fee' (like 50.00 if memory serves) and they had a clean, tight environment.

    Something to look into.

    The other option is this.

    If you work for a large corporation, Microsoft technically has a home version of MS office (that you can purchase from your companies website for 50.00 a year). It's an annual license for the software on your machine, as long as you're employed by your company.

    Last - if you or any of your children are enrolled in school, the same applies for teachers/students as an education license. They offer the same thing at a heavily discounted cost for teachers and students (college, etc).


    Thanks much for the tips, jodeb! Very interesting. I can pass this information along to our church's IT people.
  • jodeb720's avatar
    jodeb720
    Explorer
    Feb 19, 2020
    crcr,

    There's a company called Techsoup. find out if your church has a relationship with them. They are a coordinator between large corporations (e.g. Microsoft) and non profits.

    They allow non profits (like your church) to obtain, for free a license for MS Office 365 - and Microsoft gets to write off the full MSRP of the software with the IRS. It's a win/win for everybody.

    Check with your church and find out if they have an account.

    They can request a license for Office 365, for free, and it only takes a couple of days for the license to be provisioned by Techsoup.org.

    I had 25 people at my church, I got a copy of Windows server, multiple copies of Windows 10, and office 365 for all the staff (both Mac's and PC's).

    The church benefitted because it was all legal licenses, they paid almost nothing for the 'affiliation fee' (like 50.00 if memory serves) and they had a clean, tight environment.

    Something to look into.

    The other option is this.

    If you work for a large corporation, Microsoft technically has a home version of MS office (that you can purchase from your companies website for 50.00 a year). It's an annual license for the software on your machine, as long as you're employed by your company.

    Last - if you or any of your children are enrolled in school, the same applies for teachers/students as an education license. They offer the same thing at a heavily discounted cost for teachers and students (college, etc).
  • RickW's avatar
    RickW
    Explorer III
    Feb 10, 2020
    I have bought MS office pro off ebay and it works fine. You usually get a code by email in 15 minutes and no subscription fees. I believe these are stripped off bundled PCs overseas that are used for non office purposes.

    Caveat: The code is one time use. If you change the hard disk it will not reinstall. You have to spend another $5 and get another code.
  • T18skyguy's avatar
    T18skyguy
    Explorer
    Feb 08, 2020
    3) Buy M-soft Office 365 downloads on ebay for as little as $5. I see at this link: Click here


    My daughters caregiver did this and it works perfectly on her laptop. I was kind of surprised that it could be done, but I watch her use it every day. She figured she would only be out 5 bucks if it didn't work. I don't know how this can happen and work, but you guys probably can explain it.
  • Gdetrailer's avatar
    Gdetrailer
    Explorer III
    Feb 08, 2020
    1492 wrote:
    Just a thought, but if you work for any company that has a Microsoft Office 365 enterprise license, you may want to find out if it permits free install of Office 2016/2019 for personal use? My work enterprise license allows each staff up to 5 free installs of Office 2019 on our own PCs or MACs. I've only installed one my home desktop PC so far.


    Yep, that might be a possibility, however, 2016/2019 also have the Protected View Nanny in full force by default. When attempting to open any document that did not originate on your PC you will be presented with the same problem and will need to disable it.

    So moving up to newer Office version most likely will not "fix" the problem.. I know I had that problem with my last company IT PC refresh which has Office 2013.. Took some time to figure out how to fix and be able to open documents that my previous PC with Office 2008 made.

    Additionally, MS also has another "program" which is called Home Use Program (HUP) where they offer the complete MS Office 2016 for $15 or Office 2019 for $20.

    HUP requires your Company to have Enterprise licensing and Support and you will need a valid Company Email address. However, technically HUP (and I suspect Office 365) offer is good only as long as your company maintains the Enterprise level support AND you are an employee of that company.

    You leave the company, you are supposed to uninstall.
  • 1492's avatar
    1492
    Moderator
    Feb 07, 2020
    Just a thought, but if you work for any company that has a Microsoft Office 365 enterprise license, you may want to find out if it permits free install of Office 2016/2019 for personal use? My work enterprise license allows each staff up to 5 free installs of Office 2019 on our own PCs or MACs. I've only installed one my home desktop PC so far.
  • Gdetrailer's avatar
    Gdetrailer
    Explorer III
    Feb 07, 2020
    crcr wrote:


    OK, thanks for that suggestion. I just tried doing exactly that, and Excel still will not open the file. It just stays stuck on the dialog box and never opens:

    "Microsoft Excel 2010
    Opening in Protected View"

    Thanks to everyone for all your tips and suggestions. At least I am able to open the file in Libre Office.


    Ahh.. That IS the real problem.

    Starting with 2010, MS and their continual reaching for higher and higher stupidity levels of stopping folks from accidentally opening potentially virus compromised files decided to totally cripple all of the Office products with over the top "security" defaulted to the max setting.

    Pretty smart of them to forget to tell everyone, so one must discover this totally by accident then have to figure out just why this software can not open files that it should be able to open.

    Yeah, they have even hid how to fix the problem that should not have been a problem but none the less it is and up to the end user to figure out how to fix..

    OK, your gonna love this, you have to go into the "Trust Center" to find the settings to disable this stupid Protected view..

    BUT, that may not be enough, seems that sometimes Office 2010 decides to be stubborn and even though you disable the Protected view settings it refuses to open the documents and may require additional probing in the Registry (must be careful in there, make the wrong change and you might have to reload Windows and all of your software)..

    I don't have a copy of 2010 handy so I can't walk you through this.

    So, "google" is your friend here, search for disabling protected view in Office 2010.

    Found the following info on MS "Technet" forum which may be helpful to you.

    READ HERE

    At least Libre is working for you and that is a plus, I hate when things just don't work the way they are supposed to.

    If you disable Protected view, I would recommend a reboot of your PC after making changes in hopes that might stop the Protected view nanny without the need to rummage through the Registry.

    Sadly though, IF you are using "Win10 HOME" you will not have the Registry editor to fall back on (yeah MS scrubbed one of the most important parts of Windows to keep Home users from meddling in MS affairs under the hood)..

    Kind of like removing the transmission dipsticks in the engine compartment so one can't check if you have proper level of transmission fluid..
  • crcr's avatar
    crcr
    Explorer
    Feb 07, 2020
    Gdetrailer wrote:
    Windows 10 OS allows long file names and long file names with multiple "dots" in it to work, been that way since XP.

    Was going to make another suggestion I bounced across, try opening a blank Excel workbook first, then choose file and open your target file.

    If that opens then the issue most like is the file association has been corrupted and Win10 has no way to determine what program actually is supposed to open it.

    Installing Libre or Open Office, that association will get corrected and pointed to Libre or Open Office which ever you installed.

    Libre or Open Office does work, but I have had issues with Open Office not handling some document formatting which can affect your document layout. Libre may exhibit the same issue since it pretty much is similar design and may even share some code as Open Office.

    I would recommend OP try the suggestion I gave above so all bases are covered.

    I have 2013 at work and have no issue opening 2016, 2019 and Office 365 xlsx files so I really do think that the file association was corrupted..


    OK, thanks for that suggestion. I just tried doing exactly that, and Excel still will not open the file. It just stays stuck on the dialog box and never opens:

    "Microsoft Excel 2010
    Opening in Protected View"

    Thanks to everyone for all your tips and suggestions. At least I am able to open the file in Libre Office.
  • Gdetrailer's avatar
    Gdetrailer
    Explorer III
    Feb 05, 2020
    Windows 10 OS allows long file names and long file names with multiple "dots" in it to work, been that way since XP.

    Was going to make another suggestion I bounced across, try opening a blank Excel workbook first, then choose file and open your target file.

    If that opens then the issue most like is the file association has been corrupted and Win10 has no way to determine what program actually is supposed to open it.

    Installing Libre or Open Office, that association will get corrected and pointed to Libre or Open Office which ever you installed.

    Libre or Open Office does work, but I have had issues with Open Office not handling some document formatting which can affect your document layout. Libre may exhibit the same issue since it pretty much is similar design and may even share some code as Open Office.

    I would recommend OP try the suggestion I gave above so all bases are covered.

    I have 2013 at work and have no issue opening 2016, 2019 and Office 365 xlsx files so I really do think that the file association was corrupted..
  • ktmrfs's avatar
    ktmrfs
    Explorer II
    Feb 05, 2020
    wnjj wrote:
    ktmrfs wrote:
    crcr wrote:
    Thanks to all for your helpful responses. Much appreciated!

    The file that was sent to me that I am unable to open right now, is an Excel file and has the following suffix after the file name:

    .nonp.xlsx

    So I tried removing the x from the end, and the file still won't open in my 2010 M-soft Excel. Any suggestions?


    Regarding enabling Macros, I searched and found instructions to do that, and I find that Macros are already enabled in my M-soft Office Excel 2010, even though I had never touched those settings before.


    If I understand correctly the file name is something like Filename.nonp.xlxs. If this is the case, the likely issue is that the file was named and saved incorrectly. A office file should be Filename.xlxs or filename.docx NOT filename.something.xlxs

    until the file is saved correctly office or likely the clones won't open it.


    I don't know about that. The extension is always everything after the last '.'

    I renamed a file and it still opened ok with 2 dots in the name.


    I tried saving a file temp.noop and yes it did save it as a docx file and I was able to open it. So...... the op should have been able to open the file. I suspect the file may be corrupted and office is unable to open it. I've on rare occasion had that issue.

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