Replies

Terrific!

I’m about to head out, so I can’t check it out until I get back tonight, but that will be the first thing I do.

Thanks large.

n0ads wrote:

BobStr wrote:

Over a year ago, I was able to buy a a lifetime license for Office 2021 for only $38, so I let the Office 365 license lapse. Since the 2021 license is good for only one machine, I activated it on the desktop, and stopped using Office altogether on the laptop.

Bearing in mind that installation S/W is not tied to a specific license key (you enter the key when you register/activate it with Microsoft)…

Do you still have the installation file you used to install Office 2021 on your Desktop and/or the link to download it?

Since you know it worked to install Office 2021 on your Desktop, using it to install Office on your laptop would eliminate the possibility the S/W Stack Social provided is causing your current problem.

If it works, simple use the new license key you got from Stack Social to register/activate it.

If that still doesn’t work to get Office 2021 activated/working, then something else is causing your problem.

 

I actually thought of this earlier this morning, but unfortunately I don’t have it.

I know, dumb… but the file is on my Desktop, which is in the shop. My cloud service backs up only for a year, so the file is no longer there. Worst comes to worst on this score, I can wait for my desktop to come back, but in the meanwhile maybe uninstalling all my Office stuff and then reinstalling Office 2021 will do the trick.

But thanks for the suggestion.

Thanks everyone for your help. Uninstalling everything and trying again certainly seems to be the way to go.

My time is short for the next few days, which will delay my attending to this. I hope toward the end of the week to report back about my successfully getting the thing installed.

Thanks again.

No success so far.

But let me back up, since I don’t know whether this affects anything. Sorry if it’s wordy; l don’t know what’s not relevant.

I originally had Office 365. I use/used it only infrequently, since I prefer WordPerfect, but it’s there just in case. Since the license applies to multiple machines, I had it on both my desktop and laptop (both Win 10 Pro).

Over a year ago, I was able to buy a a lifetime license for Office 2021 for only $38, so I let the Office 365 license lapse. Since the 2021 license is good for only one machine, I activated it on the desktop, and stopped using Office altogether on the laptop. The executables remained on the laptop, however, so I could still launch Word, but I couldn’t use it; instead, launching the app produced a message that I had to renew the license for Office 365. I mention this because I have no idea whether having those left-overs from Office 365 is affecting anything now.

Wind forward to today. The desktop has been in for repairs for the last few weeks, and I had a another chance to buy Office 2021 cheap, this time for $37, so I decided to get it for the laptop, which is where I’m now having the problem.

My memory could be off on some details, but I am very sure that the current installation procedure is very different from what I had to do on the desktop way back when. Installing Office 2021 oan the desktop definitely did not involve “mounting” anything — this morning was the first time I’d ever heard of such a thing.

As I recall the way it went, when I installed 2021 on the desktop, I merely had to download a file, click on setup, then launch one of the Office apps (e.g., Word), which popped up a link which said that my subscription had expired, but which also provided a link that took me to the Microsoft website, where I entered my account information and then the registration code for Office 2021. Microsoft then sent me an invoice for $0. And with that I was able to use Word, or Excel, or whatever.

This time around, however, after going through the “mounting” business, launching Word produces a pop-up which gives me the option only to click either “Renew” or “no thanks.” (See Attachment 01.) Clicking renew produces a second pop up, giving me only the option to renew Office 365. (See Attachment 02.) There’s nothing about Office 2021.

So, with that as background, here’s how things have progressed after I received several replies to my message here.

I ran shell:appsfolder, and it produced a folder containing links to all of my applications, including the MS Office stuff, such as Word. As mentioned, however, unlike the time after I installed Office 2021 on my desktop, this time clicking on one of those apps produces a pop-up which gives me the option only of renewing Office 365. The folder also contains “Microsoft 365 (Office)”, but clicking on that again produces only an option to buy 365. (See Attachment 03.) The folder does not contain anything that looks like “Office 2021” or some such.

I also looked in C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\root\Office16\, which does indeed have winword.exe. etc., but the same problem arises. Clicking on the file merely produces the pop-up for buying/renewing Office 365.

I don’t know, but assume that C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\root\Office16\ already existed due to my former use of Office 365. In “details” view, every file appears to have been created long before today, with the exception of a OneNote subfolder and its contents, all of which apparently were created when I tried to install Office 2021 this morning.

I also searched in Everything for every file that was created today. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of such files, but nothing looks especially relevant (though admittedly, I got cross-eyed after a while, and could have missed something relevant if it didn’t have an obvious name, such as Word, or Winword, or Excel, or Office, or the like).

The Everything search did reconfirm, however, that something happened when I first tried to install Office, for there are a ton of files relating to OneDrive, all created right around the time I was trying to install office. Likewise, there are a bunch of xml files in AppData\Local\Microsoft\Office\16.0\winword.exe_Rules (though perhaps simply trying to launch an Office 365 app creates those files, notwithstanding the expiration of the license; I have no idea.)

Also, there are either two or three .msi files (I don’t know if an “msix” file counts as an “msi” file; all I know about such files is that they used to install programs), all of which were created right around the time that I tried to install Office 2021. (Note: I wasn’t looking at the clock this morning, so I can only suppose that they were created at right that time.) They’re named: OneDriveSync.msix, which is found in “C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft OneDrive\23.038.0219.0001\SparsePackage,” and 465b4e.msi and 465b53.msi, both of which are found in C:\Windows\Installer. I have no idea what to make of them; I just mention them for what they’re worth.

So, bottom line right now is that the only place that I’ve found on the computer which makes any explicit reference to Office 2021 is in Settings | Apps, as already mentioned in my first message. And all the individual Office apps seem to be tied solely to Office 365.

Oddly, I noticed just now that Settings | Apps has two references to Office 365, both of which are dated today. (See Attachment 04.) Something else that I don’t understand.

Does anyone have any further thoughts on what I can do to try to fix this?

And if the solution is to uninstall everything (Office 365 as well as the the phantom Office 2021), in what order do I do things with respect to that “mounted” thing? The instructions for installing Office 2021 said that the last step was to “unmount” or eject that thing. But do I unmount it before or after I’ve uninstalled the apps? Or does it matter? And with repect to the two different entries for Office 365 in Settings, does it matter which one I uninstall first?

Thanks very much.

That was fast!

Thanks for your help.

Alex5723 wrote:

You can open the image file and restore/copy any data from the image to any PC/HDD

I just keep learning stuff!

Thanks very much for the help.

1 user thanked author for this post.

Alex5723

PL1 wrote:

make an image of your computer

My understanding of imaging is that it does the entire computer: not just files, but also Windows, apps, settings — everything. Unless you’re referring to something else, I’m familiar with the concept. And I have imaged my desktop, and would have used the latest image if it had turned out that the hard drive had to be replaced.

However, assuming that we’re talking about the same thing, I’m not understanding how that would work here, where what I wanted to do was put all of my data files, but nothing else, on a different computer, to be used there while the issues with my desktop computer were worked out. I have Windows set up slightly differently on the laptop, plus, while there’s a lot of overlap, I don’t have exactly the same apps or settings on both computers. So I don’t see where imaging would help me there.

Or am I off on a tangent?

Thanks.

Zig wrote:

Bob,

Power supply failures are not that uncommon. It’s a good idea to have an (inexpensive) power supply tester. I’ve got one from Antec. You simply plug in the main motherboard connector to the tester and “power-up.”

Zig

 

Excellent idea.

Given the fact that my computer in now in for repairs, I don’t know that I have an immediate need for a power tester. But as you say, they’re pretty cheap, and if I ever have a similar problem, I can get one delivered from Amazon in a matter of days.

Thanks for the suggestion.

PL1 wrote:

That’s great. The power supply is not that expensive and your hard drive should still be intact. Once you get it back, you should start making backups that you can restore with a USB in case you really DO lose your hard drive.

Oddly, that’s how I used to do my backups: copy everything to an external drive, then periodically run a file comparison app to keep it up-to-date. After years of doing it that way, and finding it tedious (maybe there’s a better way than a file comparison app to deal with it, but I’ve never come across it), I finally decided to try something different.

That led me to OneDrive. I followed the basic instructions, but apparently the program didn’t like my having all of my data files on a separate partition, so the first time I ran it, it re-arranged everything. Some folders were completely moved over from the D drive to C:\Users\< blah, blah, blah >, others were moved there only partially (leaving the remaining partial folders on D), and still others were left entirely on the D Drive. I never did figure out whether anything was actually deleted, because at that point I immediately disabled OneDrive and used what I already had on an external drive to restore everything. (I don’t care what anyone says about OneDrive: I’m never using it again.)

Then, reading about the ease of backing up with File History and a cloud program, I shifted to them, and stopped directly copying files to an external drive. I used FH for several years, and Backblaze for the last year. Everything proceeded well, because I didn’t face any big emergencies. I occasionally used FH to restore older versions of files, or to replace ones I’d inadvertently deleted, and it worked fine for those purposes. I never had to rely on Backblaze, and regarded it mainly as a way to have a backup off-site, in case a disaster ever happened.

The problem I faced here was that I’d always relied on my laptop solely for travel, and so I didn’t store on it all of the files I had on the desktop. But when my desktop crashed, I lost access to a lot of stuff, and needed to get everything onto the laptop. But I then thought that FH wasn’t going to help, because of the different folder structures (my laptop, for example, wasn’t partitioned). At least I asked here whether there was any way to use it in such circumstances, and I didn’t get any response saying that there was a way. I therefore had to go to Backblaze, which turned out to be really tedious and time-consuming, relating both to the time it takes to prepare files for download, and then the time it takes to actually download.

There actually was a better way to deal with it, but it simply didn’t occur to me in time. I could have done this. First, copy all of the data files from the laptop to an external drive, to ensure that I didn’t lose anything to which I still had access. Then second, set up the laptop afresh. Partition it, and delete the data files and clean out the folder structure. Then now having a clean machine, use the Desktop’s copy of File History to put everything on the laptop. I know FH can be used that way, because I had previously used FH to transfer everything from an old laptop to a new one. I only wish that I had thought of it here. So, in short, I needlessly made this more difficult for myself by fretting about the folder structure on the laptop being different than the one on the desktop. I should have simply cleaned out what I had on the laptop, and gone on from there.

Perhaps what I really need to do is set up a home network, and sync the files between the desktop and the laptop that way, but until now, I never wanted everything from the desktop to also be on the laptop. Besides, I never learned how to set up a home network. Maybe I should look into that.

Just though I’d let y’all know how the issue seems to have resolved.

The repair people tell me that it’s the power unit. At least if it turns out that replacing it actually fixes things.

Thanks again for the advice.

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PL1

Tried it, but it didn’t work. Off to a computer repair place this morning.

Thanks for the suggestion.

1 user thanked author for this post.

PL1

Thanks all for the help. Sounds like I’m best off getting outside help (this is a Best Buy just a couple miles away).

Regarding the question about whether the computer makes a sound: if I unplug it, then plug it back in, there is a single click when I press the power button, which then results in a blinking yellow light in the button. No sound after that, and pressing the button again (for example, holding it in to force a shut down) does nothing. At that point, the light continues to blink unless I unplug the computer.

Thanks again.

1 user thanked author for this post.

PL1

Ah, well this shows how little I know.

I assumed that since the computer shut down and wouldn’t start up again, it was the hard drive. Is there some way that one such as myself might determine whether the drive is dead, or if the problem lies elsewhere? You suggest plugging the external docking station into the computer, but I’m having trouble understanding what I would see, given the fact that there’s no power, and the docking station itself would have an operating system on it. If I turn the monitor off and then back on, it initially states “no DP signal from your device” and then it goes blank.

But I can now see that my saying that the computer “died” was ambiguous. The situation is that the computer initially seemed as though it went into sleep (or hibernation?) mode, and then wouldn’t power back on. The power button was lit — I believe it was a steady yellow light at first, but I could be mis-remembering — which, if I recall correctly, is what it normally is when the computer is sleeping. But pressing it did nothing — no sound, no change in the light, no effect on the computer. The computer just wouldn’t power up; nor did pressing and holding the power button in for any length of time make the computer power down. The only way to power down was to unplug it. When I plug it back in, the power button doesn’t light up until I press it; then when I press it there is an audible click, and it shows a blinking yellow light, but otherwise nothing happens. And again pressing the button does nothing; in order to turn off the blinking light I have to unplug the computer.

In these circumstances, is there a way I might explore using a docking station to deal with this? Or does what I describe suggest that the problem is with something other than the drive?

Assuming that the hard drive is the problem, I do like the idea of installing a new one. Though given how long it takes to do things with Backblaze, I think I’d go with FileHistory instead. Since I’d be restoring the files to a clean drive, I wouldn’t have any of the concerns that I expressed in my initial message.

But for starters — since this might make the entire idea moot — I’ve looked and can’t find my serial number for Windows. Without that, am I dead in the water? (I supposed I could buy Win 11 an install it, since it would be cheaper than a new computer, but of course I first have to figure out if the computer is ok other than the drive.)

Assuming that the license isn’t an issue, still … given the fact that I don’t know my way around this stuff, what do I need to know (or where do I look to learn) in order to select and install a new drive? Is it essentially just a matter of detaching some leads from the old drive and then reattaching the new ones?

Also, maybe this is another dumb/ignorant question: but I’m not clear regarding what I’m going to see once the new drive is attached. I’ve reinstalled Windows before, but it was always with a computer that already had some version of Windows installed. I thought I had to already have some sort of operating system installed in order to see something on the monitor. Not so?  Restated, since a new drive will not initially have any version of Windows installed on it, how will I be able to access the Windows installation file; what’s going to appear on the monitor?Sorry to be floundering so much here.Thanks very much for your help.

Thanks for the reply.

Regarding File History: I have a working computer — the laptop — and I know that FH can be used to put files on a second computer. The reason I asked about it, though, is that I wouldn’t be putting the files on a “clean” computer (which would be a simple enough process). As mentioned in my initial message, the laptop has its own set of files, and it’s own folder structure. And, of course, there’s a lot of overlap among the names of the folders on each computer. So the thing I need to know is what effect this state of affairs would have, and how to deal with it. Not knowing, I don’t want to simply blunder ahead, with the chance that I may only screw up the files to which I do have access — the ones on the laptop.

If anyone has an idea on whether and if so how it’s possible to use FH in these circumstances, I’d appreciate hearing.

Regarding Backblaze: going through the help file I saw that one method they have is to download the backed up files to wherever. There are steps to it, though, because the files do not reside on the Blackblaze server in the same form that they exist on a PC; they have to be converted and then downloaded. At the time I posted my initial message here, it had already taken 2 hours, and the conversation still wasn’t complete.

It ended up taking maybe 3 hours for the conversion to take place and then another 2 hours to download the resulting .zip file. And I then discovered that I couldn’t extract the files from the zip. Presumably very large (around 500G) zip files don’t work well — at least with Windows’ native process. So what I’ve had to do (or, at least, it appears so), is go back and convert the backed up stuff again, this time in smaller batches. That seems to work, but it is taking forever. So if there’s a better way, I’d certainly like to hear about it.

Regarding the docking station, I don’t understand what’s being suggested. The docking station looks like it’s essentially an external drive. I don’t understand how I could use that to access files on the drive that died. I’m obviously a novice with this stuff, so I’d appreciate a fuller explanation.

Thanks again.

With due respect, you appear to be parsing words simply because you don’t like my opinions. It doesn’t advance the discussion for you to claim that my words don’t mean what they obviously do mean in in every day language.

If the ignition key to my car worked only sporadically — whatever the reason — it would be a perfectly legitimate use of the language for me to say that I had to get a new key because the old one “didn’t work.” If I said that to someone, and he replied “but you’re wrong: it does work. It only doesn’t work sometimes, and the reason is < etc. >”, most people would say that he was either missing or avoiding the point.

Same with my comments regarding websites and VPNs. Disagree with my opinions as you will, arguing about what words to use is pointless. Nor does it even begin to address my point that that a warning is in order, for it’s misleading for a website, after a paying customer has entered a user name and password, to tell the customer that there has been a “technical problem,” when that’s not at all the case. (If anyone wants to claim that there actually has been a “technical problem” in such a case, I can only throw up my hands in despair.)

I meant it when I said that I appreciate your advice. I’m not intending to get into a quarrel, so this is my last comment in this thread.

Thank you.