Microsoft Office 2010: Can’t be activated anymore? | Hacker News Reader

Microsoft Office 2010: Can’t be activated anymore?

borncity.com

72 pointspndy83 comments

The version from piratebay still works.

It's sad when pirates provide a better product than the official vendor.

And it's not just software... unskippable ads on dvds, ads on paid streaming platforms, series/movies removed, books removed from ereaders, obsoleted mediums,.... Piracy solves all that, even when not taking the price (free) in cosideration.

Netflix was the one to "solve" piracy with movies/series, where you'd pay a small fee to one company, and get "everything" on one platform, but now, with many streaming services, showing exclusive series/movies, and the need for many subscriptions to watch what you want, they're destroying that too, and making piracy a better option for many users.

I kinda wishes businesses would slowly move off microsoft to other solutions but yeah... 2022 will surely be the year of linux desktop! ...wont it?

How about malware?

Oh yeah, i forgot about malware on music cds

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_BMG_copy_protection_rootk...

that's arguing gymnastics

I do seriously ask because I avoid pirating stuff because I'm never sure what's there

and yes, I do believe that shady sites are more likely to add some fancy stuff like coin miners to their stuff than actual e.g game vendors like CDPR and similar.

The risk is always there... but you can always check the hash of the iso, if it's the same as on microsofts site, and then check the crack/patch/activator/... on virustotal.

Movies, series, music,.. are usually in file formats not really suitable to carry malware (unless you click on the movie.mp4.exe, but most tech-savy users, who know how to pirate, also know not to do that).

> Movies, series, music,.. are usually in file formats not really suitable to carry malware

A few audio file formats are (practically) Turing-complete, and there have before been bugs in the VMs that allow privilege escalation.

As an IT security professional, depending on virus total and other sites is a pretty horrible idea. It's trivial to use msfvenom to encrypt a trojan and get it executed on a system, at least for a while until it gets recognized by some cloud platform.

Untouched MSDN images have their hashes published online (not without subscription anymore but people have made mirrors).

yep, + the keygen/patches can be scanned by virustotal. Same with game cracks (usually done by replacing the "game.exe" with a cracked version)

> the keygen/patches can be scanned by virustotal.

Wouldnt open source be better?

Because not all cracks are opensource, and not all games/software is opensource.

If you need a media player, you can get an opensource one (vlc, mpv,...). If you need excell, because of incompatibilities, macros, whatever, and don't want to pay (or don't want to buy a new one, since 2010 version works fine), you must crack it.

There are a lot of open source tools that more or less automate the removal of certain protections, especially from games. I "audited" a few myself. I'd link them here but some self righteous bootlicker would probably report it.

Also if you have the original file (most cracked software conveniently provides the crack separately) you can run something like ida + diaphora[0] and see the work the crackers did nicely isolated. Sometimes its little as altering a single conditional jump.

[0]: https://github.com/joxeankoret/diaphora

I guess it's about crack.exe then

This is the question that gets brushed off, and usually hostilely suppressed, as you're experiencing now, when talking about piracy/jailbreaking/ddwrt/etc. Asking this question is not FUD. There's no answer other than just hoping that any problems will come out given enough usage. If you're advanced enough to have multiple levels of trust in your environment, you just shouldn't use cracked software in your most trusted level.

To be fair, some non-pirated software comes with malware too these days.

Windows is effectively malware at this point, it's clear the users don't care.

The kind of malware the average user is concerned about is the one that will break into their accounts by logging their keypresses, or lock them out of their own computer for a ransom. Neither of those things are likely to come from windows, so whether it technically fits some definition of malware is beyond the point.

> or lock them out of their own computer for a ransom.

True enough; Windows has never asked me for a ransom – though it has shown me the dreaded Bitlocker Blue Screen because my "hardware configuration changed" after a software update.

Personally I prefer to use open source software rather than closed source and official closed source rather than torrented files but realistically the difference may not be that big, when the hardware where the code runs is not open / not possible to be checked.

> I kinda wishes businesses would slowly move off microsoft to other solutions but yeah...

Actually Microsoft Word (not necessarily the most recent versions, also 97) is a nice piece of software that most of the time just works and after a bit of configuration doesn't get in your way. It's a great solution for short-to medium documents allowing you to get the work done. In theory, LO Writer should be the same or better, and in some aspect certainly is, but there are several little things that make it simply more pleasant to use Word.

AbiWord is opensource and is a good alternative to as MS Word 97: Uncluttered, quick, and easy to figure out.

https://www.abisource.com/

EDIT: Sorry, they've dropped Windows support recently.

Outlook, on the other hand, is a steaming heap of headache with bugs dating back years, and new ones added regularly.

Seemingly at random, using wrong Exchange credentials for an account? Known issue since 2010. Hits one of my clients so often I have a script to rebuild their credentials store.

Large mailboxes cached locally randomly corrupt? Known issue for forever, but seemingly happens less often if the OST and PST are stored in a really short path (like C:\Outlook).

Most recently the "new and on by default" setting of "Store my Outlook settings in the cloud" impacts random users, repeatedly disabling "Save sent items", despite not having a Microsoft account on the system, and none of the other users of the Exchange mailbox turning off Save sent items. It just syncs it with nothing and picks the stupidest options.

https://www.slipstick.com/outlook/outlook-saving-preferences...

> Netflix was the one to "solve" piracy with movies/series, where you'd pay a small fee to one company, and get "everything" on one platform

the true issue is that such a way to "solve" piracy means less money for the publishers, who are very used to hold a commanding position and they do not wish to give it up. Thus, the current fragmented on-demand video platforms - every publisher from disney, to HBO, wants a piece of the subscriber pie.

I wish the gov't can intervene - like for cinemas, mandate that you either produce, or distribute, but not both. This will remove exclusivity, and let the platforms compete on platform level features.

> I wish the gov't can intervene - like for cinemas, mandate that you either produce, or distribute, but not both.

This has now been repealed, fyi: https://www.polygon.com/2020/8/7/21358637/movie-theater-anti...

Not that Netflix or Disney would see the "booming" physical theater industry and want to buy in these days.

> Netflix has finalized a deal to buy Hollywood’s historic Egyptian Theatre for an undisclosed price, closing a transaction that had been in the works for more than a year.

https://variety.com/2020/film/news/netflix-hollywood-egyptia...

Not quite what you meant, but still.

> I wish the gov't can intervene - like for cinemas, mandate that you either produce, or distribute, but not both. This will remove exclusivity, and let the platforms compete on platform level features.

The only thing government needs to do is reduce years of copyright. Everything else will sort itself out.

The govt mandated that in France the TV channels cannot broadcast movies on Saturday.

Then came Netflix, non-national channels, streaming, torrents and what not but the rule stayed the same.

While, as a French, I strongly support govt interventionism, there are plenty of cases where they happily belive it is still 1990.

And don't get me started with the use of govt Internet services which are terrible.

It doesn't mention the rather hard to describe "online phone activation". This has worked for me (for other MS products) when the normal activation wouldn't.

This website guides you through the process: https://getcid.info/

It's basically just a bit more friendly UI to generate all the URL params for this site. An example: https://microsoft.gointeract.io/interact/index?interaction=1...

Edit: The gointeract.io url is controlled by Microsoft, despite how shady it looks. From what I can tell, the getcid.info site is a 3rd party, so take whatever caution you believe you need to there...though it is an easier UI.

Anyone using getcid.info, using Capture2Text will save you having to manually write out the code. http://capture2text.sourceforge.net/

"German blog reader Tobias has now had the unpleasant experience that this required activation no longer works – neither the online activation, nor a telephone activation"

The online telephone activation is a third option, different from either of those. You don't actually call anyone.

If you’re Microsoft, why not just make it 100% free? It’s 11 year old software that’s so irrelevant that they can’t be bothered to support anymore, right? What’s the harm?

Oh wait, for 99% of users there is no difference between Office 2010 and Office 365. In fact, the only significant difference I can think of is the pricing model. If the old office were free, there would be almost no reason to use the latest version.

Thanks, Microsoft. /s

Make it free for personal use, but unavailable for institutions.

When it works, the collaborative editing features are nice. It’s good to be able to do that in the native app rather than a browser.

> When it works, the collaborative editing features are nice.

It rarely works – but it's miles better than “this file has been locked for editing by somebody else”, so I'd still call it an improvement over 2010. (Just not an improvement over its competitors.)

Within an institution where everyone has the same desktop app version, it’s ok. Especially if nobody is using the malignant cancer that is EndNote.

I have a few collaborators with whom it’s not really feasible due to incompatible versions, but mostly it works for me.

Because not fighting for your intellectual property has legal value, and even more PR value. Given the /s i am not sure this was not a joke.

I edited my comment to add the /s to try and make it more clear but I think I made it less clear. Whoops.

I think there are legitimate reasons they don’t give it away for free, like some replies have mentioned. I was trying to draw attention to the fact that Office 2010 works just fine for most use cases, making this activation kerfuffle and Office 365 in general seem even more like a soulless cash-grab.

Because the current version isn't significantly better?

Yes, that is what I was trying to say.

Security. Office 2010 is no longer receiving security updates.

Curiously enough, it did still receive updates for roughly half a year after the official support end, though.

I kept an installation of Word 2010 in Wine for years, as I had that one document that wouldn't format correctly in LibreOffice, office.com, Google Docs or even the latest Word for Windows (Office 365). I edited and printed that document about once a year, and if Office is being run so seldomly, it requires reactivation on launch (or maybe it's only when started under Wine?). Which was fine until I tried to do it this year.

So it's not only the clean installs that are affected, I "lost" my installation there as well.

In the end I recreated the document from scratch in LibreOffice. I should have done it years ago to be honest.

EDIT: I didn't try changing the system date or fiddling with TLS settings, though. Maybe the situation wasn't as hopeless as I thought. But well, it's too late now.

> In the end I recreated the document from scratch in LibreOffice. I should have done it years ago to be honest.

If it's really important, Recreate in Latex or HTML+CSS if possible, more future-proof this way.

Is it? I don't know why it's problematic in Germany, but both online and phone activation here still works. Oh one note, there's some TLS settings you need to change if you're doing this in Win7 or earlier (and needs a "hacked" XP (to be precise, with updates for POS Embedded also installed) because XP is so old). Alternatively, phone activation still works, at least here.

Update: Just done a phone activation to verify, and it's automated, plain simple, and it's done painlessly. Office 2010 Home and Student (on Windows 7, which I think is irrelevant here). So unless there's a phased deactivation happening, then I'm scratching my head to be honest, especially that weird editions of Windows XP (like the "64-bit Edition" for Itanium and Media Edition <insert year variant>) are still available for telephone activation.

Update 2: this is not in Germany, but in (a country in) Asia, using the official toll-free hotline as listed here https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/licensing/existing-customer/...

The article says that others have call Microsoft, to do phone activation only to be told "... that an activation is no longer possible under any circumstances."

Just done a phone activation to verify, and it's automated, plain simple, and it's done painlessly. Office 2010 Home and Student (on Windows 7, which I think is irrelevant here). So unless there's a phased deactivation happening, then I'm scratching my head to be honest, especially that weird editions of Windows XP is still available for telephone activation.

Also in Germany? I wonder if there's something weird with Office 2010 and Germany.

Perhaps there's something broken in certain Office activations, and given the activation software is over decade old Microsoft support just doesn't care to deal with it. They just tell the customers that activation isn't possible, because they no longer have the tools or infrastructure to fix what ever is misbehaving.

Should have added here, nope, in Asia. I'll edit my comment. And yes, this is from the official toll-free one listed on the https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/licensing/existing-customer/..., not in some seven seas or something like that.

I just tried it and was able to activate my copy of Office 2010 just fine online automatically during install in North America. Although I have an academic edition I bought when I started university.

Okay, so at least that covers America and Asia. So something weird is happening with Office 2010 and Germany (or possibly Continental Europe or even EMEA)

Proper consumer rights perhaps? I wouldn't be surprised if non-EMEA consumers are abused by MS

Libreoffice to the rescue...

On a serious note, the Libreoffice suite has been more than sufficient for the needs of our family. It has also got far stabler over years...

When it comes to office work though, where you need fine-grained compatibility with MS Office formats, it might fall short once in a while...

Uhm no, as fan of open source tried to use that POS unable to even open linked pictures. Sorry, but I am not that rich to use free software which significantly affect my productivity, and that's just tip of the iceberg. Same goes for other software (I use daily for work) exporting files in XLS which doesn't work with anything but Excel installed.

Heck, I tried it even for my father and it could not even render properly his simple documents/charts.

This was always the fear when product activation was first introduced. And rightfully so, we are now living in that future.

So glad there are KMS emulators like py-kms or vlmscd that are open-source and work offline (though there is still pinging home which "Turn off KMS Client Online AVS Validation" group policy setting should disable).

Microsoft (or any other company) wants to shut down the activation servers/match making servers/<servers on which the product relies> because it's no longer profitable and the app/game/whatever is no longer profitable? Please! By all means, go ahead. But on the way to the shutdown command, if you could please release an official patch so I don't need to visit the piratebay to activate software I've already paid for. That would be much appreciated by those who, for whatever reason, are still using that software. I'd like to think that positive actions taken by developers to be considerate of customers, even if they are 10+ years old, will be of benefit to them in the future.

I highly doubt many people are running 10 year old software because they refuse to upgrade, rather there's usually something specific about it that wasn't included/built for/whatever in newer versions.

For business continuity:

open source > proprietary > proprietary with activation servers > SaaS

All of those have bins within them too. For example, Google SaaS, or bootstrap startup, will be lower continuity than vendors known for LTS.

Business continuity also changes the buy-build dynamic in ways not always factored in.

Is it legal to crack the activation code if you cannot use the software using any official method?

I’ve run out of fucks when it comes to software licensing. I’ve cracked at least three things I paid for in the past when the activation or licensing system no longer worked.

In the UK, I'm pretty sure it's legal to crack the software full stop; if you're authorised to use it, you're authorised to use it. (Distributing the cracks, or really conveying any information you've learnt from disassembly, is still very illegal, though.)

I'd be pretty pissed if I bought a copy of the product with a perpetual license, and the seller switched it off by turning off "activation".

It is not a good idea to install Office executables on your personal computer in any case, because it is a vector for hacks. Many attacks work by getting you to download and open an office document or a PDF file. Office and Acrobat are very old products written in languages without memory safety, which means they are an easy vector.

If you need to open Office documents create a OneDrive account and upload the file. Now you can open the file for free, in an browser, without exposing your computer to any attacks.

> I'd be pretty pissed if I bought a copy of the product with a perpetual license, and the seller switched it off by turning off "activation".

I delayed paying for a certain piece of software I really needed (Tripmode for MacOS) because it uses online activation.

Having software NOT require online activation (I don't care if there's offline activation) makes me 1000x more likely to pay for it, honestly.

Aren't both MAK and KMS keys for volume licenses, ie not relevant to consumers? Any end user trying to use a KMS or MAK key got scammed by whoever sold that key to them...

Reselling parts of a volume license to consumers is entirely legal in the EU, first sale doctrine applies. This has been exhaustively litigated to the highest courts.

Word 97 doesn't have this problem.

I wonder when XP will get added to the list of non-activatable software.

Its 11 years old. Is this a surprise?

Unsurprising. Still completely outrageous.

It kind of is. Expecting support for such old software is indeed unreasonable. But this is not asking for support, bug fixes, running on new platforms, or anything like that. It's people wanting to continue using the software they bought fair and square (rather than getting for free or subscribing to), and would still be able to run without this license check. How is that an unreasonable expectation? If MS doesn't want to keep the activation servers running, then they should release a patch that removes the license check.

By coincidence, my dad was just telling me this week that he'd recently bought a shrink-wrap copy of Office 2010 or 2013, couldn't activate it automatically, and while MS phone support was reluctant to activate it they eventually found some kind of a workaround.

It is. Software doesn't rust. My old copy of Office 2000 still works perfectly fine -- with Wine. Windows 2000 and Office 2000 were the last versions I bought. When M$ switched to activation-based "copy protection", I moved on to Linux and never looked back.

But the thing is: You pay for something, and it works. Then, just 11 years after the sale, the product suddenly stops working, just because someone said so, even though it's still in perfect condition. That's a nope from me. Imagine you buy new shoes, and after a while you suddenly can't put them on anymore. Or an oven doesn't work anymore after just 11 years. With M$ stuff it seems to have become a new "normal"...

I bought my computer chair about 15 years ago. The furniture company did not sneak into my house and smash it because it was too old.

I don't get the outrage. Really don't.

Because you paid for software you can no longer use.

You buy a car, after owning it for 11 year the manufacturer shows up at your door, takes your car keys and leave you with a perfection fine car you can no longer start.

Do you see the problem in that?

You buy an 11 year old car without keys and ask the manufacturer to give you some new ones. They say no. I would think that is a closer analogy.

Anyone who writes software knows that supporting older systems starts becoming more and more expensive. For many companies, one-off licensing is simply not viable in the long term, at some point, if they are not actively updating the software, they lose developer expertise and end up with a system only supported by older and retired engineers since the youngster only learn ruby/python/c# or whatever.

It is annoying sometimes but it shouldn't be surprising.

> I would think that is a closer analogy.

How? The software was bought 11 years ago, and the license keys are in the possession of the licensee.

Nobody is asking for support, but for right to use the piece of software they own 100%

I don't think you own the software, you just own the license to use it.

> Anyone who writes software knows that supporting older systems starts becoming more and more expensive.

With last quarter's profit at $16.5B (+47%), running an activation server for their flagship product can indeed be a challenge.

Nobody is asking them to stop updating the software, or to implement additional things to support old versions. They are merely asked to continue to run the infrastructure they imposed on the software, or if they wish to stop doing that, provide alternative solutions.

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