I installed MS Office Pro Plus on my 4 month old laptop. The laptop also has Office Starter 2010 pre installed, but I've never used it or activated it. I can open and create a new document in Pro Plus, but I can't view any of my Word or Excel documents in "my documents" folder, as it's only recognizing Office Starter, and it's asking me to activate it. It's not recognizing Pro Plus. When it asks me to put in my product code for Pro Plus, and when I enter it, it is telling me it's invalid, even though it's not. Any idea how I can view my documents in Pro Plus? I do not want to activate Starter, and I would prefer not to uninstall it if I don't have to. I tried contacting MS support, but it's not free.



Thank you for any help you can provide.

Telco 59

Hi Telco,

You really shouldn't have two editions of the same Office version on your system. It's bound to cause conflicts such as those you're experiencing.

__________________
Cheers,
Paul Edstein
[Fmr MS MVP - Word]

Thank you Paul. They're not exactly the same, and Office Starter has not been activated. This should not cause an invalid product key in Pro Plus. I spoke with a rep from Microsoft yesterday, and she agreed, however she could not understand why I was getting an invalid product key message for Pro Plus, as she was able to verify that I had the program installed and activated. The only way for Microsoft to help me further was to transfer me to a support rep, and for me to pay $49 for it. I am reluctant to uninstall Starter until I know that Pro Plus is OK, and I am reluctant to uninstall Pro Plus and do a reinstall due to the issue with the invalid product key that I'm getting. I never got that message before.

Hi Telco,

I am not surprised that you're having product key issues with two editions of Office 2010 installed. They share many of the same components, including, most likely, registry entries - and one of these will be for the product key. The error has quite possibly surfaced as a result of a recent automatic update (don't ask me which one), that applied to the Starter edition. The mere fact it hadn't been run/activated before wouldn't stop it being updated and that update process might have compromised Pro Plus.

Ultimately, I doubt you'll be able to resolve the problem, especially in the longer term, without uninstalling both products, then reinstalling only the one you're using. If your laptop came with the Starter edition, it'll be on either an installation CD/DVD or the system's recovery partitition if you ever need it.

__________________
Cheers,
Paul Edstein
[Fmr MS MVP - Word]

Thanks Paul. That detailed explanation makes a lot more sense to me, as I didn't have this issue until recently. I'm really reluctant to delete both versions, as I'm concerned I'll have an issue reinstalling Pro Plus, but I guess I'll have to do it. I appreciate your time and I thank you for your response.