Office 2013 Doesn’t Allow You to Transfer Your License to New PC

It seems that Microsoft is bent on making Office 365 the standard when it comes to using their popular Office programs like Word, Excel and PowerPoint. Not only have they recently introduced a new “Home Premium” version of Office, but they also have a EULA policy that ties Office 2013 to just one PC, period.

Yep, you read that right. While OEM copies of Office have always had such a policy, this is the first time that retail versions of the software were locked down to just one machine even if you uninstall it from an old PC.
This might not matter to everyone, after all, if you like the latest version of Office you probably will replace it every few years, right when you buy a PC. Still, it makes you wonder what happens if a PC is lost or stolen.

When Microsoft was asked about it directly by PC World, and Microsoft simply had the generic “no comment” response to when it comes to a lost, stolen or broken PC.
Is this the end of the world?

For folks that turn around and get the latest version of Office each and every time, probably not. That’s the majority of big businesses.

What about casual home users or small or home businesses? As a tech writer I can assure you I don’t upgrade each and every time. In fact I’m currently running Office 2007 still, though I am considering getting Office 365.

For those of us that upgrade our PCs every 1 or 2 years, but only upgrade Office every 4 or 5 years, yes this could be a problem. Honestly though, with more home users owning multiple devices like a desktop PC, laptop and even a Windows tablet – Office 365 is probably starting to make more sense anyhow.

But is Office 365 Home Premium a good deal?
At $99.99 a year (paid all at once), it’s not cheap. Still, if you like having the latest software and have a laptop and desktop, getting a regular copy of Office might make very little sense over getting Office 365, which allows you to install Office on five different devices.

I believe Office 365 also makes it pretty easy to disable an old device and move that ‘license’ over to the new one. The bottom-line is that Office 2013 isn’t a good buy for many of us.

Your best bet is probably with Office 365, or if you really don’t have very many reasons to use Office except on rare ocassion, a free program like LibreOffice might be the better option.

What do you think: Which is the better value, Office 365 or Office 2013?

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