MS Office 2003

[Pythagoras]

Does anyone know how many times you can activate office without having to call MS? Now I don't mean on differnet machines! My concern is that if I format my harddrive, and make no other changes (i.e. Hardware), so its virtually identical to what it was when I first activated, will I have to call MS?

Also I know that with Windows XP you can backup your activation, is this backup possible with office 2003?

By the way I have activated it, I think 3 times already, on the same machine of course.

[RobDog888]

If you have a retail version you should be able to activate it multiple times. Probably ~10 I assume as long as the signature remains unchanged.

If you have a subscription from MS then you will be limited depending on which subscription you have.

Either way if its legit you should have no problems calling MS. ;)

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The activation process takes a hash of your hardware configuration and it often takes a quite significant change such as changing the motherboard, hard disk and CPU for the process to detect that you are using a different PC.

What’s more, you can reactivate on the same computer as many times as you want as long as you don't change the physical devices significantly like I described above. MS - will allow you to activate a home product on one PC and one Laptop. You will have to call them to activate if you have more than one PC - sometimes the operator is nice and they will give you a code but they don't have to. Once you have activated over the phone, you can re activate the same PC after a reinstall for example via the Internet.

[RobDog888]

Yes, but if he has a subscription like MAPS then you only get anywhere from 1 - 5 licenses that can be activated only twice thats why I asked the type. :)

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I would have thought the activation process would have gotten better since XP. I speak only from personal experience with a "personal" liscense. ;)

[RobDog888]

Even with MSDN subscriptions I know first hand that they do limit the activations under Office 2003. Usually around 20-25 times. Then it locks you out and you have to call. Unless you have a Volumn license but I havent hit the limits with that yet