Unlike the days of single-product installs and trying to hang on to product keys in case you need to move to a new machine, the online subscription model of Office 365 makes this quite easy.
It's just definitely different than what we did in the past.
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The Office subscription model
Office 365 Home subscriptions are just that: an annual subscription to Microsoft Office that, as of this writing, includes:
- Current versions of all Microsoft Office applications.
- Up to five installations across either PCs or Macs.
- One terabyte of OneDrive storage.
All for $100 per year. As things go, I consider that an awesome deal.
When you purchase an Office 365 subscription, it's associated with a Microsoft account rather than any specific machine. That means the approach to installing it after purchase is pretty simple:
- Sign in to your Microsoft account if you haven't already.
- Visit the Office 365 Installation page.
- Click on Install Office and follow the instructions.
At some point during the installation, you'll sign into your Microsoft account in Office itself, at which point it'll be assigned to and authorized for that machine.
Where Office has been installed
You can repeat the installation on up to five machines using the same Microsoft account.
At any point in time, you can view exactly which machines you've installed it on by visiting that Office 365 installation page.
Here you can see I currently have Microsoft Office 365 installed on four machines: three PCs and one Mac.
Moving Office
To move Microsoft Office from one machine to another is a simple two-step process:
- Click the "Sign out of Office" button next to the machine from which you wish to remove Office.
- Download and install Office on the new machine.
That's it.
If you haven't used your five installations yet, you may not need to perform the first step. You can simply install on the new machine without needing to do anything else. (Though you'll probably want to remove yourself if you're giving the machine away.)
If you aren't moving to a new machine, but simply removing yourself from an old one, then you don't need to perform the second step. Signing out of Office on that machine will remove your Microsoft account's access to the software there.
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You say, in the article, One terabyte of OneDrive storage. As I understand it, it gives one terabyte of storage for each computer it’s installed on. For my purposes, all I can use is one terabyte as I use it to sync all my machines but if you don’t use it for syncing, you can use one terabyte per machine.
As I understand it it’s one terabyte per Microsoft Account — and you can share it with up to five other Microsoft Account users.
This is from the Office 365 website:
1 TB of OneDrive cloud storage per person – For up to 6 users
Yes, and how are those different “users” identified? OneDrive space is not allocated to a machine — it’s assigned to a Microsoft Account.
“All for $100 per year. As things go, I consider that an awesome deal.”
If I had multiple machines to install Office on, I would also think that $100 a year is a good deal. Unfortunately, I only have one, and $100 is not as good a deal. I bought Office 4 (Word 6, Excel 5, Powerpoint 4, Access 2) in 1993 and used it for 19 years until I got my Windows 7 laptop. Back in 1993, I think I paid $400. At $100 per year that would have cost me $1900. My Windows 7 latptop had Office 2010 Starter preinstalled so no extra cost and has lasted me 7 years so far. Even if you consider the cost to buy Office outright ($200-$300), it’s still cheaper than $700+ in the subscription model.
There’s not a lot of new and must-have improvements being made to Office these days to justify paying 2 to 3 times more. With one exception (Freeze Panes), Office Starter has all the things I need. It’s too bad there isn’t a less expensive option for those of us who only need Office on 1 or 2 computers.
Totally agree. I hate, with a passion, the subscription models being pushed. I know of a guy who spends in excess of $2k on various subscriptions. Each and every YEAR!!!
I have Office 10 professional which I purchased via work which M$ encourages, and as it is a professional version (i.e. business) it can be installed on more than one machine. I currently have it on 3 machines but theoretically I could have it on a hundred or more.
And, being retired, Office 2010 does everything I’ll ever need til I die. Only really use word and excel… the latter probably more than 50 times more often than the former.
Agree with JamesB subscription model is a ripoff. Assume you need to purchase a new reatail copy every year which most don’t.
Office 2010 Home and Business ( we are still using)
Cost @ *$280 per copy retail x 100 Users = $28,000 / 9 years usage = $3111 per annum total cost
vs
Office 365 Business ( we need Outlook)
100 users x *$17.20 per user per month = $20,640 Annually x 9 = $185,760
Winner Office 2010
* Prices in AUD