Microsoft Office

[John]

I am looking in to us selling our company copies which we don't use anymore to raise some money for charity.

However, whilst we have some versions which are obviously retail and can be sold, other versions I am not so sure as I've never bought it pre-installed.

We use Office 365 on all computers now.

We basically have some smaller boxes for varying versions (Office H&B / 2010/2011/2013), for both Mac and Windows (which state 1 PC or similar on them) with just a key and no media.

Is there any way to tell if this was sold as pre-installed or bought retail or is it as simple as 'no media' = 'no selling!'.

I can't discover if they were ordered with computers and the MS licensing website only distinguishes between pre-installed and bought after.

 

[b1g1an]

If you used any of the licences to upgrade to newer versions, including the discount you can get for moving to 365, they are worth nothing and you'd be breaking your licence just passing them on.

 

[markjay]

Anything can be sold on eBay, but as for legality:

1. Office 365 does not come into it, i.e. you can not sell anything you got through office 365. With some Office 365 subscriptions you 'rent' Desktop applications, with others you don't, but either way there is nothing you can pass on.

2. If you have any version of Office which was purchased with a new PC as OEM, FPK, or Medialess, then it 'lives and dies on the PC' it was purchased with. In theory you can sell it on with the PC (but not separately). The same goes for any software that came with a license sticker on a new PC.

3. Anything you purchased as a download from Microsoff can not be sold on. This includes retail downloads as well as the various Volume Licensing / Open Licensing plans.

4. 'Retail', or as Microsoft call it Fully Packaged Product (FPP), can in theory be sold on, but keep in mind that Microsoft only considers FPP legal if you can produce when requested all three elements: the original box, the CD/DVD media, and the documentation including Product License Key. So if you only have parts of it, then it does not count.


I say 'in theory' regarding 2 and 4 because the EULA will say you can't, but there was an EU ruling that retail software can be resold. Well, it is not the software that you actually buy and sell, but the Product Use Rights.

Then there is a practical issue with regards to the number of times a product can be activated. Different types of licenses have different activation counts, either 1, or 3, or 50, depending on the licensing plan. Multiple activations does not necessarily mean multiple licenses.... but it means that whoever buys the media from you might not be able to activate it without a phone call to Microsoft.

In short... everything will go if you put it on eBay, but the chances that anything you sell will actually be 'legal' is near zero....

 

[John]

Just to clarify:

Office 365 was mentioned to clarify why we have older software for sale - it does not enter the equation as given we are on it now - we aren't likely to be selling it even if we could!

We did not upgrade to Office 365.

Not selling anything on eBay - to employees only at the moment.

I know what can and can't be sold - I am trying to find out whether I can tell from what I have if the product was sold with a PC and / or bought and then installed via download i.e. retail...

Nothing is clear on the box, as you would expect from Microsoft.

 

[markjay]

1. Find the Microsoft P/N number, then Google it. E.g.: T5D-01574

It will tell you what the product is.


2. OEM can only be purchased with new hardware.

FPK and Medialess can be purchased at a late date, but once activated can not be separated from the PC they were activated on.

FPP can be moved from one PC to another, but the last version of Office available as FPP was 2010 (For Windows), so Office 2013 will not be FPP.


3. If you have OEM then there's nothing you can do with it.

If you have FPK or Medialess you can use them but only if they have not been activated on a PC yet.

If you have FPP you can re-use it on another PC assuming that it was uninstalled from the original PC it was installed on.

 

[John]

Cheers!

Much appreciated.