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Need Microsoft Office 2005

PostPosted: Thu Jul 30, 2015 6:28 pm
by pickmonger2
The office computer I have has several custom written programs running that crash under anything but MS Office 2005 .

The software has routines written to prevent anything other than Office 2005 from working . The programer no longer exists
and we do not have the software code to edit and recompile.

Does anyone have an idea where I can buy a genuine installation cd for MS Office 2005 or know where to search?

Re: Need Microsoft Office 2005

PostPosted: Thu Jul 30, 2015 6:32 pm
by macgng
is it a macro? if it is a VB module, there are ways around it.

Re: Need Microsoft Office 2005

PostPosted: Fri Jul 31, 2015 4:46 am
by Werewolf
I think you should be able to find it on ebay.

But this might be a good time to think about moving your programs to something a little more stable.
What exactely do your programs do ?

Re: Need Microsoft Office 2005

PostPosted: Fri Jul 31, 2015 7:41 am
by Papa Gleb
Pickmonger, my office (law firm) had a very similar situation as our case managing program was made to work only with squal server 1999 or 2002, something old (sorry Im not that into server stuff) but the point is that the company owner gave up on the product so there was no more support and it was hell. We purchased a new program which as a matter of fact is coming today for training :). My suggest is check if MIcrosoft suppoert 2005. I know they slowly stop supporting old stuff and at the same time stop selling it so find out if you are able to buy a genuine office 2005.

Re: Need Microsoft Office 2005

PostPosted: Fri Jul 31, 2015 9:42 am
by Jaakko Fagerlund
Good example of why everyone should just migrate to open source solutions and not use products that cease to work once developer dies or when one program/computer crashes.

My suggestion is to shed a little more light to what the program does or is supposed to do and why on earth it needs Office to work and can't be made to work on something else? I'm thinking that what it does is something trivial.

Re: Need Microsoft Office 2005

PostPosted: Fri Jul 31, 2015 1:37 pm
by jeffmoss26
are you sure that version is correct?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_o ... oft_Office

Re: Need Microsoft Office 2005

PostPosted: Fri Jul 31, 2015 2:35 pm
by Josephus
jeffmoss26 wrote:are you sure that version is correct?


Daamn! That's some crafty DRM. Only allow the code run in version 11.5 and make a matching registry entry. Guaranteed one of a kind run protection. :D

Re: Need Microsoft Office 2005

PostPosted: Sat Aug 01, 2015 9:34 am
by pickmonger2
Thanks for the input every body.

I managed to buy an unopened MS Office Pro 2005 for $100.00 from someone on ebay.

The IT team can now get the system up and running.

Re: Need Microsoft Office 2005

PostPosted: Sat Aug 01, 2015 9:37 am
by Jaakko Fagerlund
pickmonger2 wrote:Thanks for the input every body.

I managed to buy an unopened MS Office Pro 2005 for $100.00 from someone on ebay.

The IT team can now get the system up and running.

Better to fix it, meaning get it working on a system/platform/program that actually doesn't need money to have it or that the program you want to use is not dependent on another (obsolete) program.

Re: Need Microsoft Office 2005

PostPosted: Sat Aug 01, 2015 9:46 am
by pickmonger2
Josephus
Daamn! That's some crafty DRM. Only allow the code run in version 11.5 and make a matching registry entry. Guaranteed one of a kind run protection.



The programer we used may have written the code and made Office Pro only for DRM. ?

He did say when we refused to buy the source code costing just over $1000.00 that we may be very sorry if some thing goes wrong.

Now that takes balls.

Re: Need Microsoft Office 2005

PostPosted: Sat Aug 01, 2015 1:24 pm
by Josephus
I don't intend to misinform. It was a half-joke on the Office 2005 comment by Jeffmoss. Checking the version number against a version that does not exist while putting a buried registry entry in manually, making it appear to exist would have been a clever way stop the software from working on any but that one computer.

Office generally has very good backwards compatibility for business code so it not being able to run on anything later is a reasonable sign of a check embedded in there that was not absolutely necessary. So yeah the programmer probably did limit it on purpose.

Charging for code is pretty common. Sometimes is is ethical (or legal) and sometimes it isn't.

Re: Need Microsoft Office 2005

PostPosted: Sat Aug 01, 2015 4:44 pm
by jeffmoss26
I am still thoroughly confused as I have been doing IT since 2002 and have never heard of Office 2005, can you please provide a link?

Re: Need Microsoft Office 2005

PostPosted: Sat Aug 01, 2015 5:12 pm
by pmaxey83
jeffmoss26 wrote:I am still thoroughly confused as I have been doing IT since 2002 and have never heard of Office 2005, can you please provide a link?



http://www.amazon.com/ValuSoft-10398-Of ... B00079PMTS

I found this "alternative" to Windows Office.. from 2005.

Re: Need Microsoft Office 2005

PostPosted: Sat Aug 01, 2015 7:45 pm
by pickmonger2
I am still thoroughly confused as I have been doing IT since 2002 and have never heard of Office 2005, can you please provide a link


First off you are dealing with 2 computer illiterates. The research nurse who asked me for help and and myself.

The programer told her that she needed Windows and office 95 to fix the hard disk that crashed.

All data was safely backed up thank god. We may see if an other programer can figure out the data format and write code to work the existing
data. Its a tricky situation as the data contains medical information of a sensitive nature .

I think but can't prove that he is playing games with her because she didn't buy the source code.

The computer data base was custom built when it could have been built with off the shelf software and the source code is prohibitively expensive.

As soon as I get my ebay package I'll tell you what I bought for her on ebay.