Avoiding Unlicensed Software

Illegal copies of Microsoft Office

While fixing computers in and around Mildenhall, I’ve come across a number of systems that have copies of Microsoft Office 2007 Enterprise Edition installed. These dodgy installations all appear to be licensed to ‘Grizli777’, but aren’t properly licensed at all.

Innocent computer users can still get in trouble

Although these illegal copies of Microsoft Office 2007 Enterprise Edition have been installed by a computer service provider rather than the individual computer owners concerned, who may not realise that what’s been done is against the law, the computer owners could still find themselves in trouble for using the unlicensed software.

The easy solution to the problem is to remove any illegal copy of Microsoft Office 2007 Enterprise Edition and replace it with a free office package, such as LibreOffice (which can be downloaded from www.libreoffice.org). This is quite simple to do, but please feel free to get in touch with me if you need help.

A similar, but deeper problem

Some computers in the Mildenhall area are running illegal copies of Windows 7 Ultimate, apparently installed by the same computer service provider who’s been installing illegal copies of Microsoft Office 2007 Enterprise Edition. Removing a whole operating system and replacing it with a properly licensed copy is a much larger undertaking than replacing a dodgy office package with a legal one, but it can be done.

Half-baked system installations

Incidentally, whoever’s been installing these illegal copies of Windows 7 Ultimate has often failed to install all the drivers required to operate the computers properly, so sometimes the sound, the Bluetooth, or some other facility that used to work, no longer does. If you’ve had your computer ‘serviced’ recently and now have a partly working copy of Windows 7 Ultimate that you never had before, this is probably why. Please contact me if you find yourself in this situation and need help.