Can you install Office more than once?

[millerrh]

I am trying to sell an old copy of Microsoft Office on eBay that I no longer use, however it was installed once before on my old Mac. One of the potential buyers just told me that once the serial number is used, the software cannot be installed again. Can this be true? I've never not been able to reinstall software in my life before.

 

[CanadaRAM]

No it is not true, there is no serial number lockout.

To sell the software, you must include the CD and the serial and license, and deinstall it from your machine, of course.

Education, Academic and Not For Resale software cannot be sold, or transferred.

 

[mkrishnan]

To my knowledge for existing versions of Office to date, your legal and practical obligation are as follows:

Delete it from your computer and destroy any copies you retain
Send them your copy with the key.

The way the key verification works, as far as I know, is that:

1) the key's checked for validity and then also against ones widely pirated on the net
2) if a computer on the intranet is using the same key and running the program, the Office product will refuse to run.

I think there's even a way to delete the key from your computer, but I don't think it has any practical implications... the key check only works when the other computers are also running Office off the same key.

 

[Aniej]

To my knowledge for existing versions of Office to date, your legal and practical obligation are as follows:

Delete it from your computer and destroy any copies you retain
Send them your copy with the key.

The way the key verification works, as far as I know, is that:

1) the key's checked for validity and then also against ones widely pirated on the net
2) if a computer on the intranet is using the same key and running the program, the Office product will refuse to run.

I think there's even a way to delete the key from your computer, but I don't think it has any practical implications... the key check only works when the other computers are also running Office off the same key.

It also uses update to look for these at times, as such I would suggest you use littlesnitch, which is awesome and should be a matter of every day use anyway.

 

[Eraserhead]

If it's the student and teacher edition you can also install it on up to 3 computers, but can't sell it, for $50/licence that makes it a pretty good deal.