It's very much against the law and someone needs to start spanking the FTC until someone over there starts enforcing the law. A class-action lawsuit would probably help too. I have much older versions of MS-Office (because I HATE the ribbon). I also hate every and any MS app that talks to any other machine than MINE. MS put a lot of illegal back doors into stuff. MS Corporate and Board should all be swinging from lampposts for this behavior. SaaS needs to be banned and punishable by death.
Why use office at all? I've been using the native office suite here, pages, numbers, whatnot. They work well. I kept my MS license for my old windows machine, but I'm about to cancel it.
I don't want ANY microsoft apps in my ecosystem here. Just like Google, they can't be trusted.
Also, hate to harsh your mellow here, but Siri will be using Google Gemini. Not a big deal to me, since I don't use Siri.
Not surprised. I had to maintain Windows and Office back in the 90s. Not fun.
That crap was inherently unstable, requiring a wipe every year. A FDISK, FORMAT, and REINSTALL to stop the eventual crash when the Jenga file system finally reached a point of mass instability.
For personal use as a writer, I'll let Scrivener generate Word documents for submission to publishers. Otherwise, that file goes straight to Vellum to generate a EPUB file.
If I have to generate a Word document, I have Apple's Pages.
Wow. I've been considering buying a license for MS Office 20-something from some site (Geeks are Sexy maybe?) for $30-ish because I like a lot of the office features in Word that TextMaker doesn't have, but... yeah. If they're going to keep pulling this crap, then nope.
I have been using OpenOffice and LibreOffice for over 20 years at this point and my desktop and laptops run Ubuntu (not making a big deal of ubuntu, it's got its own irritating stuff but it mostly just installs and works without me having to put any effort into maintaining it. It's still computer software and I have to fix something once in a while but it is factored in once every few years instead of every few months.
I make my living doing IT support I make a lot (let me rephrase that A LOT!!) of money every year fixing issues with office. Outlook has to be my biggest revenue generator.
I've been on LibreOffice running on Linux Mint for several years now. Got tired of MicroSnot and their dictatorial ways. Linux was very easy to get in to, and works well, is robust, and free. I do all my work on Linux - wish I'd found it years earlier.
I've used OpenOffice and OfficeLibre (sad Windows user here) for years - and both work quite well and are compatible with all the doc. files. As a graphic designer, though I have too many software programs that have to have Windows to work properly, otherwise I would have switched to Mint.
It's very much against the law and someone needs to start spanking the FTC until someone over there starts enforcing the law. A class-action lawsuit would probably help too. I have much older versions of MS-Office (because I HATE the ribbon). I also hate every and any MS app that talks to any other machine than MINE. MS put a lot of illegal back doors into stuff. MS Corporate and Board should all be swinging from lampposts for this behavior. SaaS needs to be banned and punishable by death.
This is why I went to OpenOffice a few years ago. MS can pound sand.
Unfortunately, this is also affecting my work use, and my ISD isn't renewing the license. I'll have to us Google Docs there.🤢
We've been using LibreOffice and Linux Mint at home for several years now. I don't really miss the Microsoft/Windows ecosystem at all.
And since I use those for work ... I get a daily comparison showing me the switch was a good idea.
Why use office at all? I've been using the native office suite here, pages, numbers, whatnot. They work well. I kept my MS license for my old windows machine, but I'm about to cancel it.
I don't want ANY microsoft apps in my ecosystem here. Just like Google, they can't be trusted.
Also, hate to harsh your mellow here, but Siri will be using Google Gemini. Not a big deal to me, since I don't use Siri.
I’ve never used Siri either.
Not surprised. I had to maintain Windows and Office back in the 90s. Not fun.
That crap was inherently unstable, requiring a wipe every year. A FDISK, FORMAT, and REINSTALL to stop the eventual crash when the Jenga file system finally reached a point of mass instability.
For personal use as a writer, I'll let Scrivener generate Word documents for submission to publishers. Otherwise, that file goes straight to Vellum to generate a EPUB file.
If I have to generate a Word document, I have Apple's Pages.
Wow. I've been considering buying a license for MS Office 20-something from some site (Geeks are Sexy maybe?) for $30-ish because I like a lot of the office features in Word that TextMaker doesn't have, but... yeah. If they're going to keep pulling this crap, then nope.
I have been using OpenOffice and LibreOffice for over 20 years at this point and my desktop and laptops run Ubuntu (not making a big deal of ubuntu, it's got its own irritating stuff but it mostly just installs and works without me having to put any effort into maintaining it. It's still computer software and I have to fix something once in a while but it is factored in once every few years instead of every few months.
I make my living doing IT support I make a lot (let me rephrase that A LOT!!) of money every year fixing issues with office. Outlook has to be my biggest revenue generator.
I've been on LibreOffice running on Linux Mint for several years now. Got tired of MicroSnot and their dictatorial ways. Linux was very easy to get in to, and works well, is robust, and free. I do all my work on Linux - wish I'd found it years earlier.
Thanks for the vote of confidence!
I've used OpenOffice and OfficeLibre (sad Windows user here) for years - and both work quite well and are compatible with all the doc. files. As a graphic designer, though I have too many software programs that have to have Windows to work properly, otherwise I would have switched to Mint.