Microsoft Deliberately Bricking All Office For Mac 2019/2021 Installations (osnews.com)
- Reference: 0183554722
- News link: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/26/06/02/1725210/microsoft-deliberately-bricking-all-office-for-mac-20192021-installations
- Source link: https://www.osnews.com/story/145179/microsoft-is-intentionally-bricking-all-office-for-mac-2019-installations/
> "Microsoft Office 2019 and 2021 for Mac view-only conversion (2026) is a scheduled remote degradation of perpetually-licensed Microsoft Office software for macOS and iOS, [3]set for July 13, 2026 when a license-validation certificate used by the Office apps expires," reports the [4]Consumer Rights Wiki . "After Office 2019 for Mac [5]reached end of support in October 2023, Microsoft assured customers their installed apps would 'continue to function.' The July 13, 2026 conversion instead drops the apps into a Microsoft-defined ' [6]reduced functionality mode ,' in which files can be opened and viewed but not edited or saved. By May 30, 2026, the original 2023 end-of-support page had been re-dated and rewritten on Microsoft's site; the 'continue to function' clause was removed."
>
> Microsoft's advice to the users they're stealing from is to keep using the applications as mere viewers, switch to the free Office 365 web applications, pay for a 365 subscription, or buy a brand new regular copy of Office 2024. None of these make any sense, and clearly, all of this should be illegal, but it's not because the software industry is a clown show.
[1] https://www.osnews.com/story/145179/microsoft-is-intentionally-bricking-all-office-for-mac-2019-installations/
[2] https://slashdot.org/~joshuark
[3] https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365-apps/mac/certificate-update-mac-ios
[4] https://consumerrights.wiki/w/Microsoft_Office_2019_and_2021_for_Mac_view-only_conversion_(2026)#cite_note-ms-learn-cert-1
[5] https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/end-of-support-for-office-2019-for-mac-f2cbba0a-0773-4b2c-b417-b20b5bb2c757
[6] https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/update-microsoft-365-or-office-on-your-macos-or-ios-device-f418ae5d-bb5f-4078-b3d9-9340f5dd084e
Or switch to Libre (Score:5, Informative)
Or dump Microsoft and switch to LibreOffice.
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I bought a "Perpetual License" or similar for Outlook, and it worked fine until I upgraded the CPU on my machine, when Microsoft then wanted me to buy a whole new license for Outlook.
I bailed on Windows and the whole Microsoft ecosystem and went to Linux. It's been working out well.
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Hear! Hear! Microsoft is the epitomy of the American Business Model -- make money no matter how.
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I did the switch 9 years ago. Never looked back.
I also ditched any MShit for a self-hosted Nextcloud. I am on par with features, and for the price of an MS subscription, I got a fixed IP for hosting all my data at home, accessible from anywhere.
Not a setup for John Doe, but great for the nerd I am.
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+1
Did it, done it, doing it tomorrow.
Abolishing Micro$oft Office from our list of supported products is one of the best moves we've ever made.
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Being that its a mac, Apples Pages and Numbers apps are surprisingly functional software and I havent found many Doc or XLS files it cant open and work with.
Obv not going to be great for folks who use the more powerful features of office. But I *believe* they are free.
And yeah Libreoffice is reasonably functional too, even if it does feel a little arcane at times.
Lawsuit in 3... 2... (Score:2)
Sounds like Microsoft wants to get beat up in federal court. Again.
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No, it sounds like Microsoft has made the appropriate bribes in the new regime to avoid being beat up in federal court.
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"Regime"? You speak like the USA is in a dict........
Nevermind.
The Legal System. For Lawyers, By Lawyers. (Score:2)
> Sounds like Microsoft wants to get beat up in federal court. Again.
Was it worth it the last time? It likely was, so what should we expect them to do. In 21st Century Capitalism, every shitty/immoral/unethical/illegal action is weight against the punishment first. Not against morals, ethics, or even laws.
Why? Because billions spent lubin, er lobbying lawmakers up makes being shitty worth it. Every fucking time.
The Legal system replaced the Justice system when it became By Lawyers, For Lawyers. Who profit the most from it. Every fucking time.
(Also helps when you're
Acting like Broadcom (Score:3)
The nasty Broadcom behaviour is spreading in the industry. Perpetual licenses are not liberty being honoured.
This is disgusting and should be the grounds of be a class action suit.
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What we need is a clear duck typing law for digital purchases. If a purchase of a digital product looks like a sale, it is a sale, and there must be no known technological provision that is even capable of preventing its indefinite use. It must be possible to freely transfer it to new machines, to new users, etc. without limitation. Period. It must not be possible for the company to prevent this, either through action (deliberately disabling it) or inaction (failing to renew a certificate, failing to k
Class Action Lawsuit in ... 3.... 2 .... (Score:5, Insightful)
I mean, come on... This one screams class action. I just got an email link to a list of current class action suits I could click on to see if I qualified, and none of them were over as clear cut a complaint as a company purposely crippling software initially promised to keep working.
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> This one screams class action.
Absolutely and the settlement will be a free one-year subscription to Office 365, secured with a credit card. /s
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No /s sarcasm there.
Class action settlements rarely benefit the class in any meaningful way (and almost never actually correct the problem), and equally rarely discomfort the "defendant".
Your proposed settlement is very plausible (if it actually get to a settlementt).
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> I mean, come on... This one screams class action. I just got an email link to a list of current class action suits I could click on to see if I qualified, and none of them were over as clear cut a complaint as a company purposely crippling software initially promised to keep working.
You're right.
And you should get that $7 refund check just in time for the hardware to be deemed past the supported expiry date.
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class action for what? They aren't deliberately bricking it like the article claims, they simply aren't fixing a no longer supported version. A dick move given the version is only 7 years old, but well within the terms of the license purchased.
EU (Score:4, Interesting)
I have a feeling this won't fly in the EU.
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Yeah, the EU seems to be the only place where I think there is a reasonable expectation that they'll get slapped.
Are they slighting Office or Mac users? (Score:3)
> Microsoft Deliberately Bricking All Office For Mac 2019/2021 Installations
And here my Office 2010 suite on Windows 10 is chugging along just fine -- when I'm not using LibreOffice on Linux Mint ...
LibreOffice (Score:5, Funny)
A reminder to 80% of Microsoft Office users on Mac : LibreOffice is probably good enough for you.
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Why is this moderated Funny?
Version 24.2.7.2 AARCH64 runs just fine on my Mac laptop and the X86-64 version runs equally fine on my Linux box.
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Because there are some edge cases where Calc wont satisfy the end-user.
I think this issue will be going away within 5 years now that the US is well on its way to become a pariah state like Russia.
If LibreOffice won't cut it, the new Euro-Office ( [1]https://en.wikipedia.org//wiki/Euro-Office/ [wikipedia.org]) will have to... by LAW!
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org//wiki/Euro-Office/
Zero Wing said it best ... (Score:3)
.. All your base are belong to us! [1]https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K803-yi8ay8
So let me understand (Score:2)
Microsoft is disabling this software for which people have paid, because it is too much trouble to update the license certificate? Meanwhile, they keep pushing AI support that I neither want nor need.
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"AI" means Artificial Insemination , because you are going to be Fk'd in the end.
So much for the perpetual licenses sold on BoingBo (Score:2)
Second FU from Microsoft this week. I'm not going to pay for an office365 subscription any more than the Copilot subscription I cancelled yesterday.
Class-action lawsuit incoming... (Score:2)
If the product was sold with a perpetual license, then this is simply breach of contract and I foresee a class-action lawsuit.
Cool... (Score:4, Interesting)
Under New Zealand law, everyone will be entitled to a full refund.
Collect the money and move to something better.
will the apple app store force refunds? or force M (Score:2)
will the apple app store force refunds? or force MS to fix this?
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No, the New Zealand Consumer Guarantees act will force it on them.
they have a presence here in NZ, so they are legally liable to pay.
Our consumer laws are "by the people, for the people" , so we actually have a LOT of power to fight back.
A products warranty is more or less irrelevant , I got may sons 3 1/2 year Mac laptop fixed with a new motherboard for free because of it.
and this do not cost more here or what ever other boogyman claim is made. If they choose not to sell here, someone else will.
maybe one of the few times you want apple to have (Score:2)
maybe one of the few times you want apple to have hard app store rules!
Hello Pages (Score:1)
I use Word 2024 to write long-form fiction, and really, all I need is a typewriter with a memory and a search function. No images, tables, charts, etc. Pages is fine. In fact, Word was hiccuping on my last novel (90,000 words with tracked changes) on an M3Pro MacBook Pro with 18GB RAM. It's bloated, but I got an LTSC license for cheap through Groupon. Pages had no problem with it, even on an older Mac I use for travel (Intel i7 MBP with 16GB RAM).
Libreoffice is/has been/always will be free. (Score:1)
Anyone who tells me "I can't do good enough work with LibreOffice" is either wildly incompetent or unbelievably lazy.
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Why not both?
For accuracy (Score:2)
This is only for accuracy's sake. You're more than free to have opinions on Microsoft's decision. I'm just clarifying the clearly erroneous aspects of the summary.
While Office 2021 is affected by the expiring license, it's still under support until Oct 2026 and users just need to update. It only reverts to read-only if you don't update.
The issue is specific to the licensing server cert. The problem cannot be fixed without an update. They aren't actively breaking functionality. They just decided to not pro
I'm still using Office 2011 on my Mac ... (Score:2)
... you insensitive clod!
And it works just as good, if not better, than the fully up-to-date Office 365 on my work Mac.
Microsoft being Microsoft. (Score:5, Informative)
"I Am Altering the Deal, Pray I Don't Alter It Any Further."
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Art of the deal.
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The evil for which we hate Microsoft is also the reason that we all know the name. They won't ever stop being evil because that's exactly how they maintain their wealth and power.