Can I share Mircrosoft Office 2007 Professional with family?

Question

I ordered Office 2007 Professional from my school bookstore. Two of my brothers and I are in college. Is it possible to install the software on all 3 of our computers? Is it legal to install it on all 3?
I tried to find this info on Microsoft website but didn't see anything.

Answer 1

Actually, it is illegal. I would imagine you purchased a single use license with your software. Although it will work and many people do this, technically you are breaking the law. Despite others comments, schools, corporations etc. purchase multi license software to enable them to use it on more then one computer. This doesn't mean they purchase different disks for each computer. The disks they purchase list the number of computers the software can be installed on legally.

Answer 2

Strictly speaking it is illegal. It's one license per computer. If you are in an organization then you can buy multiple licenses and just one set of media so that you can use the same CD to install it on multiple computers, but I don't think that's available to non-business customers. I'm not sure if it's possible with Office 2007 - Microsoft has implemented some strong anti-piracy measures in Vista and I'm not sure if they've been integrated into Office 2007 or not.



However, since your brothers are in college they may have other options. Many colleges and universities have software available for students at a discount, and Microsoft products are almost always included in the list of available software. They should check with the IT department at their colleges to see if they can take advantage of this.



They can also try Open Office (http://www.openoffice.org/), which is a free Office alternative. It's not as fancy but it will open Office files and do most of the same basic things as Office.

Answer 3

Yes you can share it with others. When you install the software don't register it with Microsoft. This will allow you to share the same copy multiple times. Perhaps it is illegal but the cost of the software seems pretty criminal to me as well.

Answer 4

i don't know about the new office, but my mom bought office xp professional with her computer a couple years ago, and i was able to install it on my computer using the same code. i think they say you're not supposed to, but as long as you're not selling it to people or pirating it online i'm sure it's ok.

Answer 5

well at the school i teach, in the media department, when we are installing new programs, we just use one CD and there are at most 57 computers, I wouldn't say it's illegay because you are not stealing anything. you are just uploading and installing. i don't know how the hell it would be illegal, but in my opinion, it's not. so just share it. don't be scared. besides, if you get sues, which i don't know how you can get sued, you can charge them agienst education because school comes first.