Is Office Hiding on The Factory Image?

[SThompson86]

Hello quick question here. I have a Toshiba Satalite that I reloaded(corrupt OS) The client is telling me she had Office, and I said ok no problem bring me the disc and I will install it. Nonetheless, she is telling me that she never had discs. I told her there had to of been disc. Then she turns around and says well I think I only used this computer for Internet, and that its been broke for about 6 months. I said ok can you look for the discs?

She is now saying that she cant find the discs and that some one has told her that that it was pre installed. Thats where my question is coming from, could the Office install be located on the bloated factory image on the reload partition on the drive? I loaded XP from a Toshiba disc. Nonetheless, I have never heard, and never seen Office on a factory image. Every computer I have seen bought with Office comes with a CD with a license key.

I have gone through the back up I did of HDD before I did anything, and she did have Office installed, but I also found a Office 60 Day Trial.exe soo that could be where the install stemmed from.

My biggest concern is that its on the factory image..

Can you guys help me out? Thanks!

Edit* Per futher invistigating the backup, I am finding less signs of office being used for there are no .Doc `s or anyy standard Office files any where I checked every where.

 

[tf76]

I have never heard, and never seen Office on a factory image. Agreed.

If she doesn't use it then I would explain to her the difference between the trial versions and official versions. Is it possible she stores her doc files on a portable drive?

Maybe suggest to her Open Office as an alternative

 

[Xander]

Maybe suggest to her Open Office as an alternative

Just give her AbiWord (8mb), set the defaults, and be done with it.

 

[tackify]

I've had several customers say that they had MS Office installed on their machine only to have me show therm that they have Works installed but no Office.

They always say that they meant Works; Office is what they call Works.

 

[Corbin]

I have noticed a on a handfull of machines after doing a recovery the ms office will vanish if it was the 60day or 25 time use preinstall. its been on a few dell and a few toshiba this has happen to me.

 

[iptech]

Microsoft Office is frequently pre-installed on new PCs and laptops as a 60 day trial. This is then activated by a media-less licence which may be brought from the vendor or supplied separately, but must to be bought within 90 days of the original computer purchase. These pre-installed versions do not have any install disks and buyers frequently assume it to be part of the base system. They typically will have bought the Office licence as part of a package deal from the vendor and therefore will understandably assume it to be a standard all-inclusive package. So many software packages these days are media-less installs, so learn to know what you're dealing with before you opt for the nuke'n'pave option.

This why it's nearly always best to repair an operating system rather than take the technically unchallenging route of nuke'n'pave. Was the operating system really so badly "corrupted" that a competent technician couldn't have repaired it?

To get yourself out of this mess that you've created, it might be worth considering that the user used some other word processor package such as Microsoft Works which is also often included free on new systems. End-users often don't know, or indeed care what name/version/vendor of software they use, but that doesn't mean to say it's not important to them. Don't just randomly stick any word processor on there otherwise you'll get bitten even harder, find out what was previously used and restore the system to a condition the customer can use for their intended purpose. Of course it's always better to do this before you start randomly attacking a customer's system with clumsy 'repair' options.

 

[atlanticjim]

Check the image of the corrupt harddrive for an office license key. That will give you and answer to what version of office or MS works she had.
I often have to reload office using a retrieved key.

 

[MobileTechie]

I have never heard, and never seen Office on a factory image.

Really? I've seen it on scores of laptop recovery partitions. It's always the 60 day trial which continues to work in a limited fashion indefinitely. I've had clients forget to mention that whenever they start Word they get the end of the trial message.

 

[SThompson86]

I am extracting the windows directory, and I am going to probe it with produkey and see if I can find a key. I am leaning towards it being a trial.

 

[iptech]

I am extracting the windows directory, and I am going to probe it with produkey and see if I can find a key. I am leaning towards it being a trial.

Regardless of the licence status, you should still reinstall it if the customer wants it installed.

 

[SThompson86]

Regardless of the licence status, you should still reinstall it if the customer wants it installed.

thats right


Thats right for sure

 

[norm1320]

Back in my Gateway days, we did have some models that shipped with Office pre-installed and the installation media was packed into the second recovery disk. Of course they were labeled simply as Recovery Disk 1 and 2, so it was easy for the end user to not know that the disk they were looking for was right in front of them.

 

[SThompson86]

Is there any way I can manually find the key in the backup? I tried to use produkey but it throws and error when I point it at the clients extracted Windows direc.

Thanks in advanced.

 

[iptech]

Is there any way I can manually find the key in the backup? I tried to use produkey but it throws and error when I point it at the clients extracted Windows direc.

Thanks in advanced.

Produkey is designed to work on a complete partition not a single directory. You'll probably need to restore the Office Program Files directory and possible the Common Files directory as well.

 

[atlanticjim]

I am extracting the windows directory, and I am going to probe it with produkey and see if I can find a key. I am leaning towards it being a trial.

You should be able to pull the key from the corrupt hard drive with ProduKey by loading the remote hives. I don't think you will be able to get it from the restore partition (if I am reading you correctly).