How to reinstall Office on new HDD-Unknown version

~Wendy~

~Wendy~

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How do you all put office back into a new HDD without knowing the client's signin information, AND they don't know what they had on before. I don't want to ask for passwords.

Apologies if this has been posted before. (I did a thorough search prior to posting)

Dell Laptop, Win 10 Home, VER 2004

EDIT: This issue was resolved by installing O365. I suggested he call his agency (he's a police officer) to obtain discounts which he happily did. I thank you all again for your input-it's good to see spirited discussion.
 
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~Wendy~ said:
they don't know what they had on before.
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Not my problem, nor is it my responsibility to keep all my clients' passwords on record. 99% of the time I transition them to a perpetual license anyway but if they want to recover their subscription they can either figure it out themselves or pay me billable time to try and walk them through it.
 
sapphirescales said:
Not my problem, nor is it my responsibility to keep all my clients' passwords on record. 99% of the time I transition them to a perpetual license anyway but if they want to recover their subscription they can either figure it out themselves or pay me billable time to try and walk them through it.
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So what you are saying is if they had Office prior to the demise of the drive it's now their problem to reinstall? You ship the machine back without the software?
 
You really can't, simply because of the stated fact, "they don't know what they had on before." Even if you had their Microsoft Account and password for same, there is absolutely no guarantee that whatever version of Office they had will be linked to their account depending on age/version.

You could ask them to log in to their Microsoft Account and then take a look around remotely after they're in to see what you can see.

Since you mention Windows 10 Home I'll assume a residential client.
 
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~Wendy~ said:
So what you are saying is if they had Office prior to the demise of the drive it's now their problem to reinstall? You ship the machine back without the software?
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We're not responsible for the drive failure, lack of record keeping, or anything else related to what the client did or did not do. If they don't know what they had, how on earth is any technician suppose to divine that and create installation media and a key out of thin air?

In cases of disaster (one of which I just handled that sounds quite similar to what you've got on your hands) I'm responsible for getting a functioning machine back, and to install whatever the client can identify as needing installed. If some of those things are commercial software, it is up to the client to either provide the funds to buy it or supply their existing versions and keys. It they're willing to do neither, that is not my responsibility nor my problem. Of course I try to get their world back to what it was, but I'm not going to pay out of my pocket to do so nor am I going to play guessing games about what versions of what software they had.
 
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britechguy said:
You really can't, simply because of the stated fact, "they don't know what they had on before." Even if you had their Microsoft Account and password for same, there is absolutely no guarantee that whatever version of Office they had will be linked to their account depending on age/version.

You could ask them to log in to their Microsoft Account and then take a look around remotely after they're in to see what you can see.

Since you mention Windows 10 Home I'll assume a residential client. This is where I'd offer to grey market update them to Office 2019.
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That sounds reasonable. Yes, residential.

I set up an external drive for his files/File History last time he was in for a data extraction, but didn't include app files. Would that have made a difference when recovering his HDD? (For example the digital locker contents?)
 
~Wendy~ said:
That sounds reasonable. Yes, residential.

I set up an external drive for his files/File History last time he was in for a data extraction, but didn't include app files. Would that have made a difference when recovering his HDD? (For example the digital locker contents?)
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You now know next time that File History/User Data Backup is something you do in addition to a full system image backup. If I have to make the choice of one or the other, it's full system image, as you can often restore only parts of it (the user data).

The only reason I set up File History, and I do, is for the end user's convenience so that when they delete something and realize they want it back even after emptying the Recycle Bin, it will exist in File History until the retention period expires after deletion. If I want to preserve their computing "world," and I do, then a free to home users backup and recovery suite that takes full system images is installed and configured. For those I can trust to manually connect their drives and do a cyclic backup, I prefer to do it that way secondary to ransomware these days. For those who I can't, or who insist on constantly connected backup drive and fully automatic backup, that's what I end up doing, but telling them that if they get hit by ransomware their backups, all of them, are likely toast.
 
Thank you for your response. Your process makes complete sense. What free to home users backup and recovery suite do you recommend?
 
britechguy said:
This is where I'd offer to grey market update them to Office 2019.
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I'm pretty sure there is no grey market for Microsoft products. Microsoft gives keys away like candy, but the terms of use are only for demos, testing, and development. These will be the keys you are buying.
 
trevm999 said:
I'm pretty sure there is no grey market for Microsoft products. Microsoft gives keys away like candy, but the terms of use are only for demos, testing, and development. These will be the keys you are buying.
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I'm absolutely certain there is a grey market for Microsoft and other commercial software keys. The tech press was all over this when the EU courts ruled this legal.

On the Grey Market
 
~Wendy~ said:
Thank you for your response. Your process makes complete sense. What free to home users backup and recovery suite do you recommend?
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My personal favorite is EaseUS To Do Backup Free. It is absolutely not the best (as in most feature rich and versatile) free option out there, but the UI is just so simple that anyone can use it and not be intimidated by it. I also like Paragon and Macrium Reflect, but both of these are more complex and intimidating to many users.

My biggest goal with regard to backup and recovery is to get every blessed one of my clients that I can to actually take backups on a regular cycle. What that cycle is, in terms of frequency, can vary widely depending on how much new user data they generate. I do my own once per month, with "off cycle" additional backups if I have a data creation spurt (e.g., was on vacation and have uploaded hundreds of photos on to the computer in one afternoon that I do not want to have un-backed-up).

I really don't know why we (and by we I mean the tech industry as a whole) have been almost wholly unsuccessful in getting the general public to realize that having an external backup drive and a backup routine is an essential part of computer ownership, and has been for a very long time now since external backup drives became cheap in large capacities.

There now seems to be a widespread belief (and entirely false and a bad idea, in my opinion) that "everything needs to be encrypted" but when you mention taking backups you get blank stares. Would that the opposite were true.
 
Diggs said:
Windows has built-in system image backup. No need for a backup suite really.
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According to Microsoft, there is. The core component of the built-in "Backup & Recovery (Windows 7)" was deprecated several years ago in Version 1709. The moment this occurred Microsoft suggested using third-party options. I certainly wouldn't want to be using the built-in and then, on one fine feature update, finding it gone and with no way to recover from my last backup if I needed to.

Microsoft Announcement of Deprecated Features, including SIB [Backup and Restore (Windows 7)]
 
If a customer brings me a system image with libraries I have no doubt I can return them a running machine with their files.
 
Diggs said:
If a customer brings me a system image with libraries I have no doubt I can return them a running machine with their files.
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The following is not, in any way, meant to reflect on you, but on the probability of your average user bringing any tech "a system image with libraries:" The chances of that are fat, or slim, take your pick.

I could count on less than two hands, after being in this business as a repair tech for 12 years now, the number of clients who even knew what a system image was, and on less than one the number who had one if they were not a business customer.

We really are doing all our clients a service by pushing the need to get an external backup drive and establish a backup protocol as part of any service we perform where we see or learn by asking that they don't already have one in place. Heaven knows, I've been proselytizing for that for many years now. It's still disheartening how many do not follow through, but ultimately it's their funeral.
 
(Shaking head sadly....) She asked what program implying she was going to set up a backup routine or instruct the customer on backups. I stated no need for a suite as system image backup with libraries is built into Windows. How did you make the leap that the customer was going to do this by themselves just as if any would have any idea about EaseUS, Macrium or the rest?
 
Diggs said:
(Shaking head sadly....) She asked what program implying she was going to set up a backup routine or instruct the customer on backups. I stated no need for a suite as system image backup with libraries is built into Windows. How did you make the leap that the customer was going to do this by themselves just as if any would have any idea about EaseUS, Macrium or the rest?
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I very simply misread what you were trying to say. You seemed to me to be implying (and correctly, I might add) that if you were to be supplied with an extant system image backup you could extract what was needed from it, but since none existed I had no idea of exactly how that was salient. I really don't know why you inserted it into the conversation, and it confused me.

And my response to you about the built-in was crystal clear. Microsoft has directly stated not to use the built-in since it was deprecated back in version 1703. That's why there is absolutely a need to pick and install a third party solution. (P.S.: The MS Built-In SIB was also never the best option time and space-wise, either. There were, and are, many third-party tools that I preferred strictly because that was the case. Now that storage space is cheap, space is not nearly as big a deal. Time, though, can be, particularly for those with systems that still have HDDs, and there are plenty out there.)
 
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The fix for this is to use the Office Deployment Tool to prep the machine for Office 365, and direct the customer to purchase either Microsoft 365 Personal, or Microsoft 365 Family. The latter is 6 people worth of stuff, which includes 1TB of OneDrive space for each family member, which when combined with the backup tab in Onedrive means they'll never lose any of their stuff ever again.

Personal is $70 / year
Family is $100 / year

Losing an Office product is a $200 whoops... You can get the perpetual Office 2019 Home and Student too... but no Outlook. Home and Business is out there too, but not cost effective anymore due to lifecycle limitations if they'll ever get into M365.

Carbonite for one machine is $72 / year, they're going to pay similar rates for any normal backup. And technically, they need BOTH.

Or, they abandon the MS ecosystem entirely, you toss Libre Office on the machine, and just pay for Carbonite or something similar. For me the decision usually boils down to how addicted the client is to Outlook.
 
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