Microsoft Home Use Program

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I got a full copy of the Office 2019 Business Suite while I was still working.  Now, I’ve retired (a year and a half ago) and my $14.99 investment is still running on my home PC and I use it a lot for home projects along with Outlook being my email tool.  With retirement I “lost” my Microsoft account that this package was tied to and thus have no activation / product key for it anymore.  This comes up as I just uninstalled the old Office 10 Suite and the only odd outcome was all the file icons for my files using Office products are now blank.  Oh they still work but the cute ico pictures are all missing.

Should I bite the bullet and buy another copy from a vendor and thus have a product key? Will my current install keep working or will it get cranky and quit on me?  It currently indicates that the Suite is activated and everything is still working.  However should I ever have a need to re-install, I am out of luck.  I just don’t think it is worth sinking the 280 to 480 dollars into it that it would appear it will cost. Being retired I watch the dollars so it’s not a small investment for me but I would hate to loose the ability to use all those many years of files etc. I have on hand.

What are the thoughts of the gang here?

Paul –

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Right click on the blank icons, choose “Properties”
Choose “change icon” and see if you are offered the correct icon.

Download a copy of Belarc Advisor (free, from MajorGeeks)
Right click on the installer and “Run as Administrator”
Right click on the resulting desktop icon and “Run as Administrator”
See if that identifies to product key for Office 2019 Business.

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Thanks for the ideas.  I tried the ‘properties’ and it gives me the generic windows set of icons to pick from and to get any office based ico images I’ve got to drill down to the actual application exe file.

Tried Belarc Advisor and now I’m more confused…  it didn’t give me any product key but did tell me that my computer is running Window 8 home pro edition.  Windows tells me it’s Windows 10 1909 so something isn’t quite right someplace.  More to explore I guess!

Paul –

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Paul,

Try this:

1. Right click on the blank icon and write down (or copy) the Target.
2. Click on the Change Icon button.
3. Type (or paste) the value from step 1.

Should work.

HTH 😎

May the Forces of good computing be with you!

RG

PowerShell & VBA Rule!
Computer Specs

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Yup… that works ok but it has to be done to each individual file which is not realistic.  Oh well, at this point I will just have to pay attention to the file extension and won’t be able to spot them by the cute ico image and fix it as I touch each one.

I’m still worried about the whole suite going up in smoke and need to have a good recovery plan if the suite quits working.  I had hopes that in retirement I wouldn’t have to ‘fight’ with computers so much but fate has it that the struggle will continue!

Paul –

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