Do You Feel Bad When Customers don' have a Product Key

[Tech bud]

Do you all feel bad when customers don't have licenses? I upgraded an office this weekend, all their PCs were on Windows 7 and got them on 10. All but one went smoothly.

That one I ended up doing a backup and clean install as nothing seemed to work after spending a day on it and I found 4 trojans on it. Figured that was the best course of action.

I know when I set it up today, he hopefully will have the license key for Windows Office 2016. I ran Belarc Advisor but it never finds the actual key. Just crossing my fingers he has it linked to his Microsoft account.

He's paying me quite a bit already and has to take that hit too.

 

[britechguy]

The answer to your question is, for me, "Yes and no."

Yes, I do feel bad for them personally, but no, I don't feel like not filing your license keys is something that hasn't been a standard part of computer ownership for many, many years now. It's pretty much the same feeling I have when someone has a complete system crash and burn and has absolutely no backups. There are things that one should do, and a very great many people do actually do, as part of the ownership and use of various things. Keeping your license keys and having a backup protocol should be standard operating procedure for a computer owner.

How many people (including myself) have never been burned by losing a license key? Once burned should be more than enough to establish the behavior of filing the license keys for every piece of licensed software for each individual machine on which it's installed.

 

[Tech bud]

The answer to your question is, for me, "Yes and no."

Yes, I do feel bad for them personally, but no, I don't feel like not filing your license keys is something that hasn't been a standard part of computer ownership for many, many years now. It's pretty much the same feeling I have when someone has a complete system crash and burn and has absolutely no backups. There are things that one should do, and a very great many people do actually do, as part of the ownership and use of various things. Keeping your license keys and having a backup protocol should be standard operating procedure for a computer owner.

How many people (including myself) have never been burned by losing a license key? Once burned should be more than enough to establish the behavior of filing the license keys for every piece of licensed software for each individual machine on which it's installed.

That's what I tell myself too, not my fault he doesn't have the license key. But still sucks for them.

 

[sapphirescales]

It really sucks that MS doesn't store the key in the registry anymore. It's just another ploy by Microsoft to force everyone onto 365. I used to charge $49 to recover the product key and reinstall Office for people. Now most people are forced to buy a new license. It sucks for me because I make LESS selling a new license vs. recovering their old one and it sucks for them because they're paying more for a license they shouldn't need.

I'm thinking about storing people's licenses for them, but that's gonna be a totally different service and I'm not quite sure how to offer it to people or how to implement it easily. I don't particularly want the liability, but it would be best for my clients if I stored their licenses for them (or heck, even just printed them on their receipt).

 

[Markverhyden]

If I wasn't involved in the original purchase, no. I'm never responsible for someone else's failures. For purchases I'm involved in I'll make sure they have, literally, 2-3 copies in several places.

I also stopped feeling sorry for them. A huge problem these days, in general, is it's always someone else's fault. Personal responsibility has dropped to record lows.

 

[britechguy]

I don't really consider a license key to be private in any meaningful sense of that word.

I put them on service invoices and I have kept them for certain of my clients. If you don't do anything with them but have them for safekeeping, there's nothing either illegal or unethical about that. It's not like you're selling them to others or trumpeting that key to the world at large.

What on earth is your liability exposure? It's minimal to nonexistent if you're not doing anything shady with those keys, and I have no doubt you would not be.

In my own case, any that I've placed on service invoices can be pulled up in a matter of minutes (if that long) if I need to find one.

P.S.: Much like @Markverhyden, I only provide this service if I am directly involved with either purchasing the license, or having the client purchase a license for work I'm doing for them.

 

[callthatgirl]

No, I don't for Office issues. I do am somewhat regretful that when I sold Malwarebytes for life from 2008-whenever they changed their purchasing, I have 1000's of MBAM keys and still get clients who email asking for it. I probably gave it to them but they never kept it I'm sure. I still have them and strangely they will work on without any validation lol.

 

[sapphirescales]

strangely they will work on without any validation lol.

I noticed that when I bought a bunch of licenses for my personal computers. I accidentally used the same key on two computers and I thought it wouldn't activate but it took it.

 

[britechguy]

I noticed that when I bought a bunch of licenses for my personal computers. I accidentally used the same key on two computers and I thought it wouldn't activate but it took it.

And this is a serious question: Whose fault is that? [That the same license activated twice.] Certainly not yours. You are not the first, nor will you be the last, individual to make this sort of mistake. If the freakin' entity that issues and activates the licenses cannot keep their own crap straight, that's certainly not your responsibility.

Your responsibility is to behave ethically and legally. Their responsibility is to have a robust system for license activation (or declining same).

You're not intentionally trying to commit fraud. And they're doing an absolutely awful job of protecting their own assets.

If the entity that issues licenses and the methods for activating same can't keep this stuff straight, I'm certainly not going to feel awful if something like this happens. If I provide a license key that's already used, it should not activate again automatically. At the very least I should be asked a question about how many computers this license has been used on (and Microsoft has done this for a number of activations I've done in the past, particularly for licenses previously used on one machine where the software was removed before moving it to another).

 

[Sky-Knight]

No, I don't. Software is just another product, and if you lose other things you've lost them too.

And WTF is this with Microsoft not storing the keys on the units? They ARE... the rub is the keys on the cards don't match, and they made that change to deal with theft. If the customer uses those codes to make an account and then loses track of it OH WELL. Sell them a new one. The subscription is a great way to ensure they actually remember it this time. I'm done wasting time taking care of people's carelessness. If they can't handle an M365 subscription, they can switch to a free product and never worry about this again.

 

[Phillip Manning]

For office software we sell and install we would always keep a copy of the key for tracability, it also helps when it comes to data transfers to new PC's, if we dont have to ask the customer for the licence, it saves us a lot of waiting around.

It also halped many years back when we had a visit from Microsoft to check on the licences we had been selling (about 15 years back), being able to produce a list of every PC sold, which windows and office licence went with each, made the process a lot less stressful.

 

[Your PCMD]

Nope, don't feel the least bit sorry. It's the clients responsibility to ensure they have the license key, not mine. Every client I need to reinstall Windows or Office, I ask them up front "do you have your license key?". If so, great. If not, it'll be $xx additional for a new license.

Yes, I know full well that Windows 10 will read the MB for a key, but, I have clients that upgraded from Home to Pro, and that key is not stored.

Now then, for clients that purchase a license from me (Windows or Office) I always add the license into their customer notes in QB's. I get my Windows licenses from my distributor, actual sticker, and put that on the bottom of laptops (in the battery compartment if available) or on the back of the workstation - but still record the key in QB's just in case.

It's a good idea to link the Windows 10 product key to a Microsoft account. As far as Office is concerned, 90% of my clients are on Office 365 that I manage for them, so to get Office reinstalled, it;s a simple process of logging into the *onmicrosoft.com account and downloading the setup for re-installation, easy peezy.

 

[alexsmith2709]

I dont as such. I supply all Office and windows through distributors and different distributors have different ways of sending the keys. One distributor allows me to see the key in my order history, others dont. They are all emailed to the customer or a login to a secure portal is emailed, i dont get to see the key in these cases so i have no record of it.
If i supply a boxed copy instead of an ESD then there is no way for me to have a copy.
I always tell the customer its their responsibility to keep it and the key is what they are paying for, not the download/CD/DVD.
When it comes to nuke & pave i always ask for licence keys upfront and if they dont have them i tell them they have to buy new if i cant retrieve the keys, it is not my fault in anyway.

I had a customer a few years ago that i supplied a new laptop and office (was a full version, 2016 i think, not subscription) to and a little over a year later they called up asking for their "Microsoft key" because they had someone reinstalling for them. (I didnt understand why they had someone else doing the work instead of just asking us, but hey, everyone can choose who they want). We asked them if they meant Windows or Office and of course they didnt know, they just kept repeating "Microsoft key". We tried explaining the difference, the customer was getting really angry at this point saying that we shouldnt be withholding something they paid for and the technician who was there needed the key to do the job. We explained that any technician who knew what they were doing would be able to reinstall windows (it was windows 10 so had an embedded key) and also if they were reinstalling Office would know how to retrieve the key if it was stored in the Microsoft account and if it wasnt there was nothing we could do to help as we dont have a record of the key and it was her responsibility. I have no idea of the outcome, she hung up on us and we've never spoken since. No doubt she thinks we dont know what we are doing etc.

 

[frase]

Not one iota, I see $$$. I purchase the key - Install office or OS, setup/config etc. Then give client the key for safekeeping, the onus is on them.

 

[britechguy]

Not one iota, I see $$$. I purchase the key - Install office or OS, setup/config etc. Then give client the key for safekeeping, the onus is on them.

Feeling sorry for someone, and having the reaction and taking the actions you take, need not be mutually exclusive.

The onus is, absolutely, on them. I can still manage to feel a twinge of sympathy since I have, myself, been in that situation from an accidental loss of records. That doesn't change doing what needs to be done, though.

 

[TechLady]

That's what I tell myself too, not my fault he doesn't have the license key. But still sucks for them.

Yeah. If they really don't have the cash I just install Libreoffice. 99% of the time this is just fine.

 

[Moltuae]

Yeah. If they really don't have the cash I just install Libreoffice. 99% of the time this is just fine.

Libre is my go-to MS Office alternative for all my business customers. I deploy it automatically by default (via GPOs), with MS Office deployed in addition, only if the user has the appropriate license (or is a member of a particular security group).

Apart from the occasional compatibility issues, Libre is a great alternative. I find it best to configure it to save in MS Office formats however, to avoid confusion when users attempt to share files with others. A good way to do this, if you want to save time or automate post-deployment configuration, is to replace the registrymodifications.xcu file (which can be found in %APPDATA%\libreoffice\4\user) with one from a preconfigured installation.

 

[frase]

Yea I do the same, offer Libre Office and EMclient.

If they don't like that, well then they need to update to o365 or Home&Office 2019.

I give clients the alternative first off.