Office GA issues

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  Hello smg1958,

  Here is a snippet of your mgadiag report:

  OGA Data-->
  Office Status: 114 Blocked VLK 2
  Microsoft Office Professional Edition 2003 - 114 Blocked VLK 2
  OGA Version: Registered, 2.0.48.0
  Signed By: Microsoft
  Office Diagnostics: B4D0AA8B-604-645_025D1FF3-364-80041010_025D1FF3-229-80041010_025D1FF3-230-1_025D1FF3-517-80040154_025D1FF3-237-80040154_025D1FF3-238-2_025D1FF3-244-80070002_025D1FF3-258-3

  The report says you have a Blocked VLK, which means that (a) your Gateway MT3423 computer has a Volume Licensing edition of Office Professional Edition 2003 installed, and that (b) a widely pirated and now-Blocked Volume Licensing Key (VLK) was used to install it.  A "blocked" VLK is one that was issued by Microsoft to a business, educational institution, or governmental agency for their exclusive use in accordance with a Volume Licensing Agreement.  (Note that such use does NOT allow the resale of such VLKs.)  However, because the VLK may have been reported lost, stolen, or compromised to the internet by the original keyholder, or because the Volume Licensing Agreement has expired, Microsoft has blocked the VLK from further use.
  
  If your use of this Volume Licensing edition of Office Professional Edition 2003 is in association with an organization that has a Volume Licensing Agreement for this product, then please contact the IT support staff of the organization for further assistance.
  
  If you are an individual consumer, you should never have been sold Volume Licensing (VL) materials such as a VL disc, and you certainly should not have received a Blocked Product Key.  You should have been sold Genuine retail licensed software.
  
  Your first course of action is to confront your seller with this information and demand a full refund.  If the seller refuses to help, please consider pursuing whatever consumer protection remedies are available to you by law, by payment method, or by the selling venue.
  
  Also, depending upon whether you received "high quality" counterfeit materials, you may qualify for the Office Complimentary Offer or for the Office Genuine Advantage discounted offer.  Please see the FAQ here:  http://www.microsoft.com/genuine/downloads/FAQ.aspx?displaylang=en#ID0EKNAC  If you think that you qualify for the Genuine Office Offer, apply for the Offer thru the "Learn More Online" or "Resolve Now" links that the OGA Notifier is displaying.
  
  One other possibility is that at one time your computer did have a Genuine installation of Office installed, but for some reason it was replaced with the current installation which is nongenuine.  This could have happened if you took your computer to a repair shop and they reinstalled Windows and/or some or all of your programs.  You Get Genuine once again by uninstalling the current nongenuine installation of Office and using your Genuine Microsoft hologrammed Office installation CDs, along with the genuine Product Key found on your Office Edition's Certificate of Authenticity (if OEM) or yellow-orange Proof Of License label (if retail), to put back the genuine installation of Office you may have already had on the computer.

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  Buy Office 2007 Now, Get Office 2010 Free http://office2010.microsoft.com/en-us/tech-guarantee/microsoft-office-2010-technology-guarantee-FX101825695.aspx?CTT=97

  • Marked as answer by Darin Smith MS Friday, September 10, 2010 10:12 PM

  Friday, September 10, 2010 2:38 AM
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  Hello smg1958,

  You wrote, "OK, reading further posts, I see that the "VLK 114" has been blocked!  And my report above shows my Office Pro has that VLK -- but as I said, I bought this laptop BRAND NEW, TURN-KEY, PROGRAMS PRE-LOADED by Gateway, at a Circuit City store which has since gone out of business.  What am I supposed to do to fix this problem???  I didn't do anything wrong, I didn't purchase after-market software, I didn't pirate anything, and I have not had this computer in for professional repairs nor "friend" repairs!  Until this problem, I haven't had any problems!  Please help me!!!"

  I cannot explain how the nongenuine software got installed onto your computer.

  When a computer manufacturer installs a full paid-for license (as opposed to a 60-day Trial version) of Office onto their computers, they install an OEM (original equipment manufacturer) license.  I can tell you that it would be very, very rare for an OEM licensed installation of Office Professional 2003 to be installed on a Gateway computer that was a shelf-stock notebook computer at a mass-market consumer electronics store such as (the late) Circuit City.  And if this indeed were an OEM license, the purchase would have been notable for two things:  (1) you would have received a packet of installation discs in a paperboard CD holder, and onto that sleeve would be a Certificate of Authenticity from Microsoft and Gateway, and this CoA would have the OEM product key printed on it; and (2), the sales price you paid would reflect the additional price of the OEM license for Office Pro 2003, which would have been somewhere in the range of $250-$300.

  OTOH, it was (and is) very very common for computer manufactuers to install a 60-day trial of the current Office suite onto just about every computer sent to retail stores.

  So if the Office that your computer may have come with was a full paid license for Office, it would have been an OEM license and not Volume.  If the Office that your computer would have come with was ther Trial of Office, which you subsequently paid for and converted to a perpetually licensed product, depending upon which product was installed, it would have been licensed as an OEM product or a retail product, not a Volume Licensing product.

  A remote possibility is that the computer you bought may have been an "open box," a "return,", or a so-called "refurbished" computer.  If so, then a previous owner may have installed the nongenuine software before you acquired the computer.

  ---

  Buy Office 2007 Now, Get Office 2010 Free http://office2010.microsoft.com/en-us/tech-guarantee/microsoft-office-2010-technology-guarantee-FX101825695.aspx?CTT=97

  • Marked as answer by Darin Smith MS Friday, September 10, 2010 10:12 PM

  Friday, September 10, 2010 2:56 AM
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  Thank you Dan, you've been very helpful.

  I purchased this laptop brand new from Circuit City as my personal computer, not as part of an organization.

  Circuit City has since closed and filed bankruptcy, and evidently reorganized as CircuitCity.com.  Their website says they are not responsible for sales that occurred prior to March of 2008; my purchase was in July 2007. 

  I have notified them of this invalid license issue but do not expect the new Circuit City entity to do the right thing and pay me whatever it will cost me to get a genuine product, and Microsoft's website won't qualify me for the "Complimentary Offer" as I was never given any installation disks so I don't have any to turn in -- this laptop came with everything preloaded at the Gateway factory -- or so I was told by Circuit City.  It has a validation sticker on the back; how was I to know they were selling me bad software??

  This computer has NEVER been in a repair shop, has never had any programs removed and reinstalled by me or anyone else.  I've never had a problem until now this GA problem with Office.

  I will also be contacting Gateway about this but I'm sure they'll say the same thing that Microsoft and Circuit City are saying:

  It's MY problem and I'm SOL, and the only way to remedy it is to purchase a new Office product. 

  And just how am I supposed to be absolutely certain I'm getting a valid product the next time!?  Oh, right... purchase it direct from Microsoft.

  You've been very helpful and I much appreciate it, I know that you don't make the rules.  But pass on to the higher ups who DO make the rules, this thought from me (which I suspect is shared by many others who find themselves in the same boat I'm in):

  Shame on Microsoft for authorizing Circuit City to sell their products, and double-shame Microsoft for not supplying those of us who were sold computers pre-loaded (no disks) with what we are now being told is phony software, with a genuine version!  We were ripped off by a Microsoft approved dealer, through no fault of our own.  We shouldn't have to repurchase what we've already paid for.

  I will begin researching Apple/MAC products and software.  I don't think I want to give any more of my hard-earned dollars to Microsoft, if I can avoid it.

   

  Friday, September 10, 2010 3:17 AM
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  Hello smg1958,

  If you have a look at the MT3423 support page at Gateway.com http://support.gateway.com/s/Mobile/2007/Apache/1014654R/1014654Rnv.shtml and click on the link for Software Information it shows that this model number computer shipped from Gateway with a 60-day Trial of Office Home and Student 2007.

  If the computer had the nongenuine installation of Office Professional 2003 on it at the moment of purchase, then I would have to think that the product was not in the factory-sealed Gateway box when they handed it to you.  It would have had to have been opened prior to them giving it to you, because that would be the only way for this nongenuine Office to get onto the computer.

  Some comtemporary user reviews of the product from 2007 state that the selling price was in the $650-700 range.  Is that about what you paid?  Note that an OEM license for Office Pro 2003 would have cost an extra $250-300 over and above the price of the laptop.  So my point is that, if you paid around $650-700 for the laptop, in reality you did not pay anything extra for the Office that somehow found its way onto the laptop.

  ---

  Buy Office 2007 Now, Get Office 2010 Free http://office2010.microsoft.com/en-us/tech-guarantee/microsoft-office-2010-technology-guarantee-FX101825695.aspx?CTT=97

  • Marked as answer by Darin Smith MS Friday, September 10, 2010 10:12 PM

  Friday, September 10, 2010 4:08 AM