Microsoft Office 2019 for Mac Will Soon Stop Letting You Edit Documents

[bgillander]

Imagine if I bought a photo editing program digitally from another company that rhymes with whapple, for 499.00 at the time. then went to download it into a new mac after they discontinued the product and said NO. It's like I almost burned 500 dollars into nothing. Be speechless by this behavior, but don't think MS is the only one that has ever done this. Aperture falls into the same category only way more expensive. Oh, they discontinued it only one year later, not 7 years like Microsoft.

As much as the Aperture discontinuation annoyed me, your timeline seems way off.

Unless I remember it incorrectly, Aperture was discontinued a couple of years after I bought it in 2012 for $80 from the Mac App Store. I just checked and it still shows up in my available software there, though I haven't tried installing it to confirm it still installs, because it is already installed on my legacy Mac that still has the old enough OS to run it.

Wikipedia appears to agree with me, as it shows the $499 price was for Version 1 introduced in 2005, with Version 2 being introduced on February 12, 2008 with a drop to $199. Version 3 came out in 2010 for the same $199, but then dropped to $80 on Jan 6, 2011 when it was added to the Mac App Store. That was discontinued on June 27, 2014, so those of us that bought it a year or two before it was discontinued were at least only out $80, and even that still annoyed me.

If I bought it for $499 I am sure I would have been far beyond my $80 worth of annoyed, but the period from when it cost $499 to when it was discontinued should have been at least 6 years (almost 6.5 years if it was purchased the day before it dropped to $199, to as long as 8.5 years if purchased on V1 release date of Nov 30, 2005). Even Version 2/3's $199 worth of annoyed should have had a period of ownership of at least 3.4 years. If you bought it for $499 a year before it was discontinued in 2014, then someone overcharged you dramatically.

That said, yes Apple isn't faultless for expiring things, and I wouldn't be at all shocked if part of this issue with Office has to do with Microsoft's older Apple Developer Digital Certificates expiring and them not wanting to re-sign "obsolete" projects.

 

[svish]

Extremely disappointing. A one time purchase version should continue to function. Asking consumers to purchase a newer version which would then expire in the future is simply not a one time purchase version. Think one of Macs is running 2019 version. Will have to think about what is to be done. Don't want to have a subscription.

Having to purchase a so called 'one time' version every 5 years, is simply a subscription.

 

[kwikdeth]

Certificate has to be stored somewhere... Couldn't you just manually replace it with a new cert?

 

[Lukelyke765]

Well, I guess I’m exclusively using iWork apps outside of the office! I have no choice but to use Excel at work, but at home I’ll be using Pages and Numbers.

That’s a nice approach. But as someone using windows side apps entire life it’s a pain to switch from excel to Mac equivalent of that. I tried but not wanting to purchase Excel for 1 calculation I had to suck it up and use google sheet against my pride. Pages and Keynote are fine but Mac excel thing takes a bit to get used to.

 

[Lukelyke765]

Funny the battles some people pick to fight...

There are plenty of deals for M365 for as low as $50/yr. As soon as your Amazon subscription ends, cancel it. You make everything so hard...

I don’t think you are right here. Subscription here and there and it all easily becomes 500$. I mean it’s fine if you actually use it but if you needed to open 1 document a year 50$ is expensive.

 

[H2SO4]

I have gotten used to Numbers for basic spreadsheets, Pages works fine I kind of like it! I never installed the Office 2021 I bought for ($40?) and I am happy to say no more Microsoft.

What does, "$40?", mean?

 

[sdp4462]

If some people were still on the fence whether to drop Microsoft products from your life (I have been moderately successful in this regard), this might be the push that some need.

 

[jms_uk]

What does, "$40?", mean?

He doesn't remember how much he paid for it, maybe $40?

 

[djplong]

Microsoft just never learns. When they go to court - they are the BAD guys who get DRAGGED in. It's been that way ever since DOS.

 

[Luis Ortega]

So people paid for an open-ended licence, but Microsoft decided "**** you", and nukes them?

Nice work, Microsoft. Really doing a good PR job just now. 🙄

Well, I'm not happy that Apple is throwing my intel iMac under the bus with no further os updates. Or that my 100£ Apple Pencil came with such a crappy battery that it won’t work anymore if the battery drains completely.

 

[djplong]

Well, I'm not happy that Apple is throwing my intel iMac under the bus with no further os updates. Or that my 100£ Apple Pencil came with such a crappy battery that it won’t work anymore if the battery drains completely.

The difference is that your equipment will still work.

It may not get anything but security updates at bed - but you can still use the machine.

Microsoft is apparently bricking, on purpose, all those who bought the 'perpetual' license.

 

[xDeadTechx]

The fact that Microsoft mentioned that it cannot be updated due to them not supporting the product anymore is BS. Microsoft released an out of band update for Windows XP sometime ago due to a nasty vulnerability that had to be patched quickly due to so many people still using it.

I smell a lawsuit coming from the EU

 

[RUQRU]

This is when I switch to something else.

Yes, ONLYOFFICE is free and is highly compatible with MS Office.

 

[RUQRU]

I’m looking forward to the day I can ditch M$ and stick with the Apple suite or something open source.

Try ONLYOFFICE

 

[H2SO4]

He doesn't remember how much he paid for it, maybe $40?

Yah I suppose. At that price definitely worth installing over the icrApps.

 

[Bazza1]

A FURTHER ADDENDUM TO EARLIER POST:

I was getting the nag bar and the disabling of functionality within Home Office & Business 2021 on my old MacBook Air (2017 running Monterey) - and not just the inability of it to update.

Digging about on the net, I found someone who had similar issue with this app - and he spent a great deal of time with Microsoft Support to get it fixed. They posted the steps and I decided to give it a go, and it seems to have restored functionality. For now.

Here, in a nutshell, is the procedure.

1. Download, install and let run the Office License Removal Tool - https://support.microsoft.com/en-us...on-a-mac-b032c0f6-a431-4dad-83a9-6b727c03b193

2. Uninstall your Office apps.

3. Sign into your Microsoft Account. Scroll down the page and find your Office application on file and use Install button to download it. File will call itself a variation of 365 and Office, but don't let that throw you. You'll be installing the standalone.
- a sidebar here. In my case, that Installer was only good for MacOS 14 and above. As this Air is running Monterey (so MacOS 12) , that wasn't going to work. Fortunately, I had kept the original Installer. Hope you did too if older MacOS. Not sure if it still exists online somewhere. Did also have the original License code on hand if needed. It wasn't.

4. Run Installer. Once complete, it will open up Update. Let that run. I made the mistake of clicking 'auto check for updates' which I turned off later. Will explain in a minute.

5. Once that's all done, open an app. They suggest something like Word or Excel. It will open a sign-in window for your Account and once you done that, your license will be activated again and the app available.

Now I first opened Excel and did get a nag bar letting me know it was unable to do updates going forward - OS too old. I dismissed that. Opened Word and did the same. Occurred to me to turn off 'Auto update' and that seemed to kill off that nag bar.

Upshot of all that - as I said - I have regained full functionality of the apps. How long for? Who knows?
And I am keeping LibreOffice in my back pocket, just in case.

 

[Mousse]

sounds like a contract breach to me, but can't you just kill whatever the process is to stop it from communicating with the server?

You never bothered reading the EULA, right? Jump to the warranty part and you'll find this or something similar...

MICROSOFT AND ITS SUPPLIERS PROVIDE THE SOFTWARE PRODUCT AND SUPPORT SERVICES (IF ANY) AS IS AND WITH ALL FAULTS, AND HEREBY DISCLAIM ALL OTHER WARRANTIES AND CONDITIONS, EITHER EXPRESS, IMPLIED OR STATUTORY

You can't run the software unless you agree to the EULA no matter how one sided the terms. We're Lando and MS is Darth Vader.

 

[LeeW]

I always love a thread on MR about Microsoft annoying Apple users who will always claim they would never use Microsoft products but are upset that they are about to loose access to the Microsoft products they don't have 🙂

 

[Mousse]

I always love a thread on MR about Microsoft annoying Apple users who will always claim they would never use Microsoft products but are upset that they are about to loose access to the Microsoft products they don't have 🙂

Apple users aren't monolithic. We're not Borg. We're not a hive mind, but a diverse group of individuals ranging from rabid fanbois who rejects anything MS to the pragmatic who thinks MS isn't half bad😲😲😲.

I'm part of the latter. Not only is MS not bad in my book, but MS Excel is the best spreadsheet!!!!!* Nothing comes close. If you're doing basic home budgeting, even a toy like Numbers is good enough. But if you're forecasting or keeping track of a multinational business expenses, using anything other than Excel would be like arguing on the Net. It's fun for a while, but in the end, a fruitless endeavor.

*multiple exclamation points, a sure sign of a diseased mind.😏

 

[macshmack]

You never bothered reading the EULA, right?

well no, I haven't, because I haven't signed anything, and no one usually reads those 99 pages, but surely 'implied' here could also apply to 'lifetime' or whatever the one-off license is called? anyway, there are ways around this stuff, not that I know of any..

 

[cyberdocwi2]

Hello,

I too think that this absolutely stinks that a software license will vaporize because the owner (Microsoft) doesn't see fit to release some small patch to keep it running, or perhaps clobber the time bomb completely.

With the development of the internet being always "on", software manufacturers developed anti-piracy code for software to phone home. A good idea perhaps back then, but a bummer to keep various links alive. Microsoft doesn't like to keep links alive - look at some books for Knowledge Base numbers, and see that the links are all busted.

I casually use Word, but have a lot of documentation in PowerPoint. I have used LibreOffice for years, and will just need to migrate over to them. Or put Office 2011 into my Mojave Mac, and live in that world. I know of businesses who use LibreOffice daily, and do not have Office licenses. The schools around here have moved to Google Office, or G Suite, or whatever they call it today.

I do like LibreOffice migration support among the platforms - Mac Linux Windoze. On Mac, the performance is a bit slow on my Intel MacBook Pro; I need to try it on the Kid's Apple Silicon to see how well it works there.

I could also fire up my SheepSaver / QEMU environment, and pull out MacWrite Pro. I also have that floppy disk for WordPerfect Mac that I used for a while in the 1990's. Going to leave the Apple //c PFS:Write disks alone, however. I don't have the ImageWriter wired up properly.

Back to Micro$oft and the licensing: Bad voodoo there. Likely Illegal. Fully understand you will not update the code and functionality, but I expected my license to work, and also be available to be re-installed well into the future. Micro$oft changed their mind, and they can likely fix this. Also note that I do not see the problem affecting Windows versions of the software. Hmm.

Christian

 

[nmt1900]

It is quite probable that most of these moaners have not even read macOS EULA - to know that Apple and/or Apple’s licensors retain ownership of the Apple Software itself and reserve all rights not expressly granted to you.

Same can apply to many other software products if stated in EULA of these products - which means that "ownership" of any of these products is an illusion. End of perpetual licensing is seeping in everywhere - including products much more expensive than even Aperture's initial version... and this is actually finishing off that illusion of ownership.

Yes there are many software products that are not based on commercial licensing - but they can get abandoned by developer as well and become unusable. As long-time (longer than being a Mac user) desktop Linux user I unfortunately had to face this multiple times.

 

[martinchivers]

And I thought I was alone! I've written a post and was about to post it when I came across this thread. I've scanned the answers, but there are a lot! Has anyone come up with a get-around, that works?

I have a Late 2014 27 inch iMac running BigSur. This has 32gig of RAM and runs very reliably. A couple of years ago I bought Microsoft office 2019 suite and that runs very well too. My computer is used daily. I’ve received an email from Microsoft screenshot attached. Saying that from 13th of July the software will no longer work properly in so far as I can open Files and alter them, but then not be able to save them. This is due to the fact that the machine is now old and updates are no longer available. Having said that I don’t need any updates and the computer is still working beautifully and in fantastic condition. I ran a very small business and do not want to buy a new computer as I would need a lot of RAM (for photoshop) and a high spec machine would not be affordable. My accounts for instance are done in Excel and invoices in Word, versions are saved as I go along. The email lays out three different options one of which is to buy a later version of office and another option is to work online. I’m incredibly annoyed with Microsoft for doing this as when I bought the software I was led to believe that it was a lifetime license.

I’ve looked at the three options. Working online seems to be fairly convoluted. Need to login navigate to word and upload my existing file. All of that takes too long. When I tried it my file (that had been created in Word on my Mac) was very different, formatting & fonts totally different. Absolutely totally useless.

Microsoft office home 2024 is £119 which again is quite a lot of money. I’m now wondering if there are any get arounds to enable me to just continue with what I’m using currently. The third option on the email is to subscribe to 365 personal version from £85.00 per year.

I have tried Libra office and pages, in the past and don’t like either of those. I only really need excel & word. I do use Outlook, but could access my emails via gmail directly. I do not need copilot (whatever that may be), powerpoint, one note etc.

 

[Bazza1]

And I thought I was alone! I've written a post and was about to post it when I came across this thread. I've scanned the answers, but there are a lot! Has anyone come up with a get-around, that works?

I have a Late 2014 27 inch iMac running BigSur. This has 32gig of RAM and runs very reliably. A couple of years ago I bought Microsoft office 2019 suite and that runs very well too. My computer is used daily. I’ve received an email from Microsoft screenshot attached. Saying that from 13th of July the software will no longer work properly in so far as I can open Files and alter them, but then not be able to save them. This is due to the fact that the machine is now old and updates are no longer available. Having said that I don’t need any updates and the computer is still working beautifully and in fantastic condition. I ran a very small business and do not want to buy a new computer as I would need a lot of RAM (for photoshop) and a high spec machine would not be affordable. My accounts for instance are done in Excel and invoices in Word, versions are saved as I go along. The email lays out three different options one of which is to buy a later version of office and another option is to work online. I’m incredibly annoyed with Microsoft for doing this as when I bought the software I was led to believe that it was a lifetime license.

I’ve looked at the three options. Working online seems to be fairly convoluted. Need to login navigate to word and upload my existing file. All of that takes too long. When I tried it my file (that had been created in Word on my Mac) was very different, formatting & fonts totally different. Absolutely totally useless.

Microsoft office home 2024 is £119 which again is quite a lot of money. I’m now wondering if there are any get arounds to enable me to just continue with what I’m using currently. The third option on the email is to subscribe to 365 personal version from £85.00 per year.

I have tried Libra office and pages, in the past and don’t like either of those. I only really need excel & word. I do use Outlook, but could access my emails via gmail directly. I do not need copilot (whatever that may be), powerpoint, one note etc.View attachment 2634916

"So yes, we acknowledge you paid full price for a standalone app that continues to work on your older OS Mac, but we're not only no longer supporting that version of Word, but are turning off its functionality this month. That said, in appreciation for your past patronage, we suggest you spend more money repeating the same problem down the line (Office 2024), or lock yourself into a yearly subscription. In the meantime, we are offering a 'free trial' Of 365 Personal. Please provide your credit card number."

 

[Haiku_Oezu]

If the certificate is expired wouldn’t the app just not launch at all? Why would it go into read only mode?