9 ms·
Microsoft Office 2019 and 2021 for Mac view-only conversion
- superkuh 4mo agoAnother situation in which the fragility of CA TLS creates finite and very short software lifetimes. No software that uses CA TLS can say their applications "will continue to function". But Microsoft did and that's on them.
- Kapura 4mo agoyou're acting like this wasn't intentional
- superkuh 4mo agoI don't mean to imply it isn't. I wouldn't be surpised. I just have no evidence of such. CA TLS is messy and pretty much impossible to get right even over medium timescales. But it does reminds me of when Garmin GPS would make the storage filesystem limited to say, 3GB of read size, then offer "lifetime map updates" while knowing that in a few years the new map size will not be readable on old Garmin devices.
- harry8 4mo ago“ the original 2023 end-of-support page had been re-dated and rewritten on Microsoft's site; the "continue to function" clause was removed” You sound like a shill trying to muddy the waters. It’s petty clear when they silently change their web pages to delete features sold that it’s quite deliberate or did they accidentally do that too? Do you have a direct or indirect relationship with microsoft perchance or just missed it in TFA maybe?
- superkuh 4mo agoFar from it. I'm a "shill" for my own private cause of trying to point out that CA TLS is so bad it cannot be differentiated from malicious behavior and offers as a cover for it. Also, did you not read, "But Microsoft did and that's on them.". I have no relation to microsoft.
- Lammy 4mo agoI agree with you. I hate that there's any mechanism with a built-in time limit that anyone can sell as a Good Thing to well-meaning but naive people. Look we're using encryption; you like that right? More encryption == more secure == your peers will attack you if you don't like it.
- II2II 4mo agoIf you're talking about the modified web pages, then disabling the licenses is intentional. If you're talking about the original decision to use certificates around 2019, it is more doubtful. Sure, they would have known the certificates would expire, they could push out a small update to remedy that, and that they would eventually stop doing so. On the other hand, doing so seven or eight years later on a platform where they could probably wait another five years and expect Apple to do the job for them (i.e. Apple isn't going to maintain Intel support forever). That seems like an invitation for angry and potentially litigious users.
- gchamonlive 4mo agoMaybe it wasn't which is worse, meaning Microsoft despite being in the top 10 most valuable companies in the world can't even get these basic details right. I think assuming this was intentional is actually giving Microsoft the benefit of the doubt tbh.
- Kapura 4mo agodo you like, not understand how capitalism does to tech
- gchamonlive 4mo agoThe semantic function of modulators like "maybe" and "I think" implies the statement is hypothetical. My comment was intended to subvert the expectations around the intentionality behind Microsoft actions to make it look even worse than it is. It's got nothing to do with the enshitification of products in closed software immersed in our current economic ethos. I hope this clarifies my "understanding of [what] capitalism does to tech". But I'm fun at parties, I swear :P
- avazhi 4mo agoPlenty of tech companies operate capitalistically without intentionally defrauding their customers.
- crest 4mo agoThis should be treated as an organised crime syndicate stealing the purchase price from every customer.
- ronbenton 4mo agoI’m shocked I say. Shocked.
- gchamonlive 4mo agoUtterly flabbergasted
- Ygg2 4mo agoWell. Not that shocked.
- dangus 4mo agoI would encourage affected customers to go to small claims court. You’ll probably get a default judgment. Small claims court was created for just this type of issue.
- harry8 4mo agoBut they’ve got you. Nobody uses Microsoft office turdware unless they’re locked in and have to. You lose access to it. You’re cooked.
- Barbing 4mo agoI actually have a retiree in mind to whom I’ll have to recommend LibreOffice https://libreoffice.org https://libreoffice.org
- dangus 4mo agoYou’re right, I’m sure nobody’s made any kind of mass activation scripts that you could find online and get a better experience than paying customers.
- thfuran 4mo agoIf you’re cooked because of Microsoft’s willful destruction of property, that just means it’s not a small claim anymore.
- anticensor 4mo agoDestruction of property is a crime, and criminal cases are not in the scope of arbitration.
- amluto 4mo agoIMO it would be better if there was a general mechanism to prevent profiting from corrupt business practices. For example, a court could determine how much money Microsoft made by selling perpetual licenses that turned out to be a lie, add interest, add a 50% penalty, and require Microsoft to pay all of that into a trust to be collected by any customers harmed. The point would not be so much to help the customers but to cause the actual cost to Microsoft to be sufficiently high as to disincentivize corrupt behavior.
- notamario 4mo agoYarr, this be thievery.
- gchamonlive 4mo agoYou don't ask to talk to Microsoft representatives anymore, you invoke the code for the right of parley.
- bitwize 4mo agoAye, but the Pirates' Code is more what ye call guidelines than actual rules.
- gchamonlive 4mo agoBy the time you are made aware of it though, you are already part of the crew.
- nikcub 4mo agoI believe the urgent deprecation timeline here may be related to ai labs using offline licensed Office in agents as part of workflows and Office integration. Microsoft wants _each_ agent instance to be a separate license[0] There was always a probability that Microsoft were going to funnel offline users into O365 at some point - but I imagined that to take place over months / years not weeks and days. Buying a single license for thousands of agents may have expedited that. It has resulted in non-Microsoft labs having better ai integration into their products than Microsoft. edit: just read the detail of the note - so this is a cert expiry as part of Apple dist that is being warned about ~2 months before it happens. Standalone on Mac has a term limit. [0] https://www.businessinsider.com/microsoft-executive-suggests-ai-agents-buy-software-licenses-seats-2026-4 https://www.businessinsider.com/microsoft-executive-suggests...
- wmf 4mo agoThese are single-machine licenses. I doubt thousands of agents can run on a single machine.
- Retr0id 4mo agoUnless you snapshot a VM and run clones of it.
- varispeed 4mo agoHow do you define a single machine?
- koolala 4mo agoOne OS instance.
- wmf 4mo agoThe answer is far more comprehensive than I imagined. "...run one instance of the software on your device (the licensed device), for use by one person at a time... In this agreement, “device” means a local hardware system (whether physical or virtual) with an internal storage device capable of running the software. A hardware partition or blade is considered to be a device. For purposes of this agreement, “device” does not include any hardware system (whether physical or virtual) on which the software is installed or accessed solely for remote use over a network. this license does not give you any right to ... use the software as server software or to operate the device as a server; use the software to offer commercial hosting services; make the software available for simultaneous use by more than one user over a network; install the software on a server for remote access or use over a network; or install the software on a device for use only by remote users This license allows you to install only one instance of the software for use on one device, whether that device is physical or virtual. If you want to use the software on more than one virtual device, you must obtain a separate license for each instance. Microsoft may require you to activate the software over the Internet in order for you to use the software. ... The software may periodically and automatically reconnect to the Internet to confirm the license associated with the licensed device. If you do not reconnect your device to the Internet when required as part of the activation or reactivation process, the software may operate with reduced functionality. We hope we never have a dispute, but if we do, you and we agree to try for 60 days, upon receipt of a Notice of Dispute, to resolve it informally. If we can’t, you and we agree to binding individual arbitration before the American Arbitration Association (“AAA”) under the Federal Arbitration Act (“FAA”), and not to sue in court in front of a judge or jury. ... Class action lawsuits, class-wide arbitrations, private attorney-general actions, requests for public injunctions and any other proceeding where someone acts in a representative capacity aren’t allowed." https://www.microsoft.com/content/dam/microsoft/usetm/documents/office/2024-word/retail-(packaged)/Microsoft%20License%20Terms%20Office%202024%20-%20English.pdf https://www.microsoft.com/content/dam/microsoft/usetm/docume...
- thunfischtoast 4mo agoWhen the pirated version is truer to the original contract than the official version. What a time to be alive.
- userbinator 4mo agoCould be as little as a one-byte difference to patch out the expiry check.
- varispeed 4mo agoSometimes one bit.
- teaearlgraycold 4mo agoDamn, you could create an illegal number by sharing an offset+value.
- Retr0id 4mo agoOr indeed an illegal LLM prompt: "/goal locate and patch out the licensing check"
- angry_octet 4mo agoEnforcing your rights under your contract by patching out some cert validation checks seems legal to me. Maybe not in places with anti-circumvention laws, but elsewhere it seems fine.
- userbinator 4mo agoIt would be amusingly ironic if someone used Copilot to do it.
- londons_explore 4mo agoPretty sure this is beyond copilots abilities... It's really bad at any kind of binary analysis.
- nytesky 4mo agoDid Apple pay them to drop support to boost their revamped Numbers/Pages/Keynote suite (ClarisWorks Infitniy.0). Obviously this is a joke, though there was a period when Microsoft invested in Apple to serve as a stand-in foil for the anti-trust lawsuit. So tactical investing for something other than monetary ROI has precedent …
- jdswain 4mo agoIn a way it's not a joke. I was just considering that myself. I pay for a M365 family license, but when I think about it, I could do everything I actually use it for in Numbers and Pages. The only thing is file format compatibility, it is useful to be able to open word documents and be sure the formatting is correct, but even that is less important than it used to be. I used to make use of Office to edit work documents on my Mac, but security considerations prevent this now.
- philistine 4mo agoSwitch to iWork and get a copy of LibreOffice whenever an old docx document looks funky in Pages. Buy yourself something nice every month with the money you save.
- sometimes_all 4mo agoThe only reason I pay for M365 family is for the 1 TB per member storage. Excel is a bonus, and Word and Powerpoint are basically not needed any more. If a better storage deal comes along, I'll happily cancel.
- nytesky 4mo agoI agree the 1TB is a good deal. But our phones are Apple and our email is Google, so it’s all wonky sync via OneDrive (and when you have a lot of OneDrive the forced syncs to your windows login takes a lot of cache space). Wish there was an open interface to use cloud storage, like a mount point, so Gmail or iPhotos could just write there rather than the hand carrying of data. But probably vendor lock-in is too compelling
- ____tom____ 4mo agoSo, do I just disable updates? How do I do that?
- altairprime 4mo agoAs described, the licensing system will fail you into readonly locally unless you subscribe Office Clippy 365, buy Office 2024, apply Office 2021 updates, or (not listed) apply third-party licensing cracks for Office 2019. Presumably we’ll know soon if network firewalling the licensing server helps, but I expect it’ll just delay the intentional failure by a few months at best.
- avazhi 4mo agoPresumably this will happen to Offica 2021 in two years, too, so it's actually worse than you say.
- altairprime 4mo agoPossibly, yes?
- jandrese 4mo agoNo, the problem is the software has an internal certificate that is about to expire. This is exactly the sort of scenario where I do not feel bad at all tracking down an online crack that disables the certificate check. That said, it is probably not in Microsoft's best interest for people to have a legitimate reason to discover how much easier life can be if you pirate software.
- userbinator 4mo agoMicrosoft 365 apps use a digital certificate to validate licensing. The certificate currently in use expires on July 13, 2026. ...and I'd almost be willing to bet that, as usual, the cracked version will remain perfectly functional.
- bastawhiz 4mo agoInteresting that the deadline is checks notes one day before the Nightmare deadline. Definitely not a coincidence, right?
- VanTheBrand 4mo agoThe certificate was issued before the Nightmare Eclipse zero day thing started but I suppose it’s possible there are other certificates expiring around the same time that could be connected to the Nightmare deadline. Probably a coincidence though
- kstrauser 4mo agoWhat’s the Nightmare deadline? I’m out of the loop on Microsoft news.
- bastawhiz 4mo agoMicrosoft mistreated a security researcher, the researcher publicly dumped a horde of Microsoft zero days, Microsoft was decidedly miffed, the researcher says they'll "shatter Microsoft's bones" on July 14.
- canyp 4mo agoSource: https://www.theregister.com/security/2026/05/28/microsoft-0-day-feud-escalates-as-researcher-threatens-another-windows-exploit-dump/5248085 https://www.theregister.com/security/2026/05/28/microsoft-0-...
- cheschire 4mo agoIt’s also the day before SharePoint 2016 and SharePoint 2019 (both considered office products) fall out of support and have to be replaced by SharePoint subscription edition.
- verandaguy 4mo agoWhat's the nightmare deadline? I'm guessing it's October 14, but what happens then?
- deleted 4mo ago[deleted]
- jefecoon 4mo agoclass action lawsuit? maybe i'll eventually get a settlement for my multiple Office Mac licenses that won't buy me a latte. what a joke. note to self: never buy anything from MSFT ever again.
- g023 4mo agoWhen did "hate the customer" become a thing?
- cm11 4mo agoYour satisfaction is your margin is their opportunity.
- anigbrowl 4mo agoLook at generational C-suite shifts in Silicon Valley. Post the financial crisis, all regulatory efforts concentrated on banks and brokers for a decade, and tech firms were given a free rein. Boards apparently chose 'growth over anything else' types to lead.
- jordanb 4mo agoWhen Google beat their antitrust suit
- cwnyth 4mo agoThe phrase "there's a sucker born every minute" is well over two centuries old.[1] [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/There%27s_a_sucker_born_every_minute https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/There%27s_a_sucker_born_every_...
- coliveira 4mo agoMicrosoft always hated their customers. And their competitors. And their suppliers too. The only people they don't hate really are their shareholders.
- deleted 4mo ago[deleted]
- drnick1 4mo agoJust use LibreOffice or other better tools like TeX instead of a WYSIWYG editor. With AI it is easier than ever to port existing documents, even if you have to OCR the original.
- IFC_LLC 4mo agoThe best company to do Microsoft in is Microsoft. They are responsible for awesome sales of MacBook Neo.
- deaton 4mo agoAs the old adage goes, "the day Microsoft makes a product that doesn't suck will be the day they start making vacuum cleaners"
- coliveira 4mo agoThis is so true! I've never seen a software company more disgusting than MS.
- d4lt4 4mo ago[dead]
- theandrewbailey 4mo agoBut a vacuum cleaner that doesn't suck... still sucks.
- mft_ 4mo agoI disagree. I suspect the vast majority of Neo sales are simply driven by the ability to get Apple-quality laptop hardware for such a low price. As such, the people driving the Neo sales are competing manufacturers who offer cheap nasty plastic underpowered Windows laptops around that price point. A small minority of buyers may be primarily buying the Neo to escape Windows; but I would argue that if someone is this sophisticated, then they would also be aware that Apple is slowly taking a similar enshittified path with MacOS.
- IFC_LLC 4mo agoI think you severely underestimate the power of Copilot. It's the absolute worst thing for windows. (I've been using Microsoft since Windows 3.11, till Windows 10. Windows 11 was the last drop for me.)
- dmitrygr 4mo agoSound like Microsoft's given me permission to make some binary patches to return functionality I already paid for, and to share it with my 7 billion closest friends. Cool.
- systemBuilder 4mo ago[flagged]
- witheredspirit 4mo agoStop blaming the users when it's literally the company that's violating the contract/agreement (and potentially violating the law). Superiority complex about your proposed solution is ridiculous because Google can and will close down your account for any reason they see fit and you'll lose all your Google docs you made since 2015 (and more). It wouldn't be the first.
- Hizonner 4mo ago> Stop blaming the users when it's literally the company that's violating the contract/agreement (and potentially violating the law). Why not both? I mean, if you leave your keys in your car and the window down, the car thief is definitely the one who should go to jail, but you're still an idiot. I do agree that you have to be a special kind of stupid to take people to task for trusting Microsoft "perpetual" licenses while yourself trusting Google much more. I mean, just using Google in the first place is even dumber than buying the Microsoft license, but that's above and beyond the call.
- tomhow 4mo agoPlease don't fulminate on HN. The guidelines make it clear we're trying for something better here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- 866-RON-0-FEZ 4mo agoI am impacted by this and am furious about it. Mostly because I'm reading about it here and not from, you know, Microsoft, of whom I am a customer. If Apple can release updates for ancient iOS versions to update certificates years after the fact, then these fucking assholes can do the same. The auto-update functionality is there. They are choosing not to use it.
- nullhole 4mo agos/perpetual/permanent perpetual has pejorative connotations and only started appearing in marketing speak when software rental became the new business model.
- themadturk 4mo agoThe last time I refreshed my Mac setup I didn't reinstall my standalone Microsoft Office, which I'd kept for the (very) occasional Word compatibility need. Looks like I can trash the installer now, save a little drive space.
- skeledrew 4mo agoWell, technically they never said the products would continue to function with the same functionality. But also this is Micro$oft, and I would've thought people would know by now that do only what's in their own interest.
- Minor49er 4mo agoIt's entirely reasonable to expect the basic functionality of document and spreadsheet editors to edit documents and spreadsheets. If an editor no longer can edit, it's no longer functional. Microsoft seems to know this which is why they removed the "continue to function" clause from their end-of-support page. Unfortunately this kind of thing will continue since Microsoft can survive any slap on the wrist that might come their way for their sleazy practices. They've done it countless times throughout their existence. It has been paying off enough for them to keep doing it.
- skeledrew 4mo ago> They've done it countless times throughout their existence. Exactly. As such I no longer consider them accountable when they do this kind of thing. It's the buyers' fault for not voting for better with their wallets, and I have 0 sympathy for them.
- reenorap 4mo agoI have a purchased copy of Office 2013 and they can pry it off my cold dead hands.
- dminvs 4mo agoanother tick in the "never ever have a partnership with Microsoft" column...
- ok_computer 4mo agoI’ve always bought a fresh perpetual license to office home and student with every new computer since 2005. That is four mac computers total and I assume ~$600 in office licenses over 21 years. Not a ton of money but not zero. My resume is typeset in LaTeX and I don’t make many slide decks for personal use. I figure I can get a decent Tex template. I don’t use excel much anymore. For my next mac I’ll probably just skip Office. I do not want a software subscription. I also usually buy Sublime text + Merge and Cubase audio, USB overdrive, Graphana for svgs, maybe a few other licenses. I will buy and do not pirate software, devs and companies deserve compensation for their work. I also do not rent software. Though I do a small yearly donation ($50) to the Python software foundation because that language got me out of hands-on labor in labs. I don’t care about agents at home. If Microsoft abandons a staple software package that has been a standard in personal computing since the 90’s then I’m only their customer at work lol.
- Suppafly 4mo ago>I’ve always bought a fresh perpetual license to office home and student with every new computer since 2005. Why? Just to upgrade or what?
- ok_computer 4mo agoYes, just to keep a current version in the decade. My first repurchase was either because moving from powerPC to Intel compatibility or wanting docx files with a big Office shift. The last time I bought Office was 2020 before returning to school (despite getting a student license). I do not see a good reason to now until someone in my household needs it for school.
- mghackerlady 4mo agoUse libreoffice, its good for the occasions you need actual office software instead of latex
- cwnyth 4mo agoAgreed, and before the naysayers start chiming in, I wrote my whole dissertation in LibreOffice Writer without any issues. LibreOffice is fine. My one and only gripe is that the resume templates are sorely lacking, but that's a community issue, not a software one.
- kopirgan 4mo agoThis could be class action worthy..
- Tostino 4mo agoAh, sadly the license forbids that, or even individual suit. Only arbitration.
- kopirgan 4mo agoIsn't that itself challenge-able?
- JumpCrisscross 4mo agoThat’s essentially equivalent for claims like this. File an arbitration claim. Let Microsoft pay. If even a few thousand customers do this, it’s about as painful as a class action lawsuit, which anyway gets eaten up mostly by legal costs.
- pdonis 4mo agoMore users for LibreOffice.
- allajfjwbwkwja 4mo agoThis shouldn't be legal. The software was clearly marketed as a classic fixed-in-time release, like the old CD releases, that would not be updated but would work indefinitely. Now they're going to boldly revoke the licenses???
- TZubiri 4mo agoI don't know if illegal, but it can be breach of contract, microsoft can say "oopsie, sorry, our bad" or fight it in court. They sold a perpetual product that broke in sync for every user, and the reason it is breaking is because of a license checking feature. Not an easy case, but it could be argued they advertised a product as perpetual while it's effectively an X years license. The fact that the breakage is related to the license might be relevant, you can stop supporting license checks, but do it to the benefit of users, not conveniently to their detriment as an upsale mechanism
- itopaloglu83 4mo agoIt’s more malicious than that, they’re simply not renewing their code signing license hence making the software non-functional.
- londons_explore 4mo agoWhich probably allows them to skirt legal liability... After all, a computer with the date set to 2021 will still function...
- cyphar 4mo agoUntil they shut down the server, which will almost certainly be soon after the certificate expires.
- allajfjwbwkwja 4mo agoYep. Scummy, even for Microsoft. Too bad their EULA blocks class action. They were selling it until October 2021, so it's not some ancient system. By building a time bomb into it, they misrepresented what was effectively a $50/year subscription as if it were a $229 purchase. Should be a slam dunk case, but it won't be.
- mrandish 4mo agoHow quickly certs went from "securing your software" to "securing our business model".
- canyp 4mo agoIt was never about security. '"Secure" boot' is older than this and was the same trick, they would ideally not allow you to boot anything that wasn't signed by them. It is already very frustrating that you have to go out of your way to enter the UEFI and disable it. For everyone but the technical user, their goal is already accomplished.
- tobadzistsini 4mo agoFine, I'll continue with LibreOffice if Satya insists.
- DomenicoMazza 4mo agoThis change would go against multiple consumer guarantees in Australia where it's 1) a right to have undisturbed possession of a product 2) products must be fit for the advertised purpose https://www.accc.gov.au/consumers/buying-products-and-services/consumer-rights-and-guarantees https://www.accc.gov.au/consumers/buying-products-and-servic... Microsoft would be breaking consumer law if the change goes ahead for the perpetual licenses they sold in Australia
- misswaterfairy 4mo agoAnd this won't be their first time breaking Australian Consumer Law... Twelve months ago no less! https://www.accc.gov.au/media-release/microsoft-in-court-for-allegedly-misleading-millions-of-australians-over-microsoft-365-subscriptions https://www.accc.gov.au/media-release/microsoft-in-court-for... The ACCC is going to love this.
- msla 4mo agoEvery time someone imagines a country going after Microsoft in a serious way these days, I wonder how much that country's government depends on Microsoft software and cloud infrastructure, and if that country imagines Microsoft would continue to allow them to use such things if they become an enemy of Microsoft in court.
- applfanboysbgon 4mo agoMicrosoft won't get very far as a business if it starts thinking it's above the law and cuts off half the rich world as customers. Their goal, at the end of the day, is to make money. I don't know what kind of weird projection power fantasy roleplaying is going on in your head, but Microsoft is not going to cut off Australia even if they are made to honour this petty little clause that will not actually cost them anything. And even if it did, it wouldn't really matter. It's a relationship of convenience. A country can figure out an alternative if it really mattered, MS is not integral in any way, using it is just the path of least resistance. Something like ASML embargoing a country would actually be a threat, but Microsoft is very replaceable.
- sieabahlpark 4mo ago[dead]
- 0x59 4mo agoMS hates him! Find out this one trick they don't want you to know! $ sudo pacman -S libreoffice
- jmward01 4mo agoThis is the new way and we need to stop it now. Forget the 'is it legal or not' arguments, their lawyers will win. Just get mad and tell them this is wrong. Stop buying their #$@#$ software. Block them. This is what is wrong with cars too. Don't want to give them real time data on you and your passengers and instead try to disconnect the modem? Well, no car functionality for you even if it doesn't need it. -get mad- Stop taking it. Microsoft is the enemy and needs to be treated that way. Same with any tech company that does the bait and switch TOS world. I buy so little software now and it is hard, but unless we stop this now it will only get worse.
- appplication 4mo agoHard agree. In the past, companies made their profits by providing value that induces a sale, but the trend in the last 1-2 decades is increasingly towards extracting value. The main difference being we are moving away from clearly defined transactions and companies view their customer base as a resource that they can trade increasing amounts of asymmetric, long-term exploitation for some pre-calculated probability of churn. And of course companies like Microsoft or the car companies in your example have experimentally determined that the less transparent and immediate the product transaction is, the less likely some percent of their customer base will fully understand exactly what it is they are giving and receiving in turn from each of the companies that supposedly providing them value. The answer is not to simply boycott, but to actively and aggressively punish companies for acting with this particular brand of capitalist maliciousness. It includes being vocal online but also pushing for more aggressive countermeasures against unchecked greed. Billionaire taxes, closing corporate tax loopholes, consumer protection, expanded antitrust, right to repair, labor rights. All of the policies that are “bad for business”. Because fuck them, policies that are good for business have only led to exploitation of the masses and we get nothing in return but more creative value extraction. It’s past due we have sympathy for the corporate bottom line and time we start to get excited when companies bleed a little in the face of policies and regulations that absolutely do not care about corporate interest.
- walrus01 4mo ago> but the trend in the last 1-2 decades is increasingly towards extracting value It's rent-seeking in the economics textbook sense of the word. Actually quite straightforward once you understand and internalize that they want you to rent SAAS products forever with a monthly recurring bill into eternity. And then as the parent poster 'jmward' commented above, choose not to engage with it. In the example of this specific product, Libreoffice is good enough. There's also a renewed European project for open source/self hosted office suite software.
- yoyohello13 4mo agoIf you’re still using Microsoft products at this point it’s your own damn fault. They have been doing this shit for years… decades.
- edg5000 4mo agoThe forced restarts pushed me over the edge; I dropped MS in 2021
- matheusmoreira 4mo ago> 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. Never fails to impress how utterly Orwellian these big techs can be.
- jamwise 4mo agoBeen using LibreOffice for years. Everyone should. If we don't vote with our choices companies like Microsoft will keep pushing the envelope until you have to pay a monthly fee to turn on your own computer. https://www.libreoffice.org/ https://www.libreoffice.org/
- xingped 4mo agoSame. There is literally nothing I need from Microsoft Office that I can't do just fine in Libre Office. Happier to be using free open source software too.
- vjvjvjvjghv 4mo agoLibre Office is fine standalone but as soon as you have to exchange files with other businesses you are often pretty much forced to use MS Office. Sad but true.
- nrub 4mo agoJust because they don't know how to use a computer well, doesn't mean you can't teach them.
- Joel_Mckay 4mo agoMost use PDF for exchanges anyway, as there is no guarantee the receiver system has all the document components/features used to author content. 10% of users with MacOS Office 2019 installs just got NERF'd by Microsoft. This story will not encourage users to spend more money on a disappearing rabbit trick. =3
- kopirgan 4mo agoIf not for the fact that some commercial software addons work only in Excel I'll be using only Libreoffice for everything. In fact that's the only major thing that's stopping me from totally abandoning Windows for Linux as well. I'm guessing that's the situation for several others though there could be other use cases that's Excel only. Instead of pressing Microsoft, it would probably make sense to force such vendors (SAP, Oracle etc) to release their office add-ons for Libre office. That'll kill two very profitable birds with one stone.
- edg5000 4mo agoWhich commercial Excel addons do you depend on currently?
- kopirgan 4mo agoNot me but my customers so that affects me as well. Mainly Oracle
- tatersolid 4mo agoVena is one of the most popular enterprise budgeting/forecasting packages. It ships as a new-style Excel extension making Excel the UI for department heads contributing to a rolled up enterprise budget
- selectively 4mo ago[dead]
- Bratmon 4mo agoI genuinely don't understand why anyone would ever make a business transaction with Microsoft. Like, they're up there with crypto companies in the category of "This outcome was so inevitable that if you didn't expect it, maybe you should consider finding a legal guardian"
- jiggawatts 4mo agoHundreds of millions of businesses (and individuals) transacted $83 billion to Microsoft just last quarter, so clearly they're doing something right. Any "big enough" organisation will eventually do something stupid, disgraceful, or even illegal. Once you have over a hundred thousand staff, there's just no way to guarantee that they all row in the same direction and nobody gives in to the temptation to cut corners or outright cheat. If you think you can judge the entire rest of an organisation by a few bad actors within it, you'll be perpetually disappointed.
- Bratmon 4mo agoYet not as disappointed as the people who actually believed Microsoft would give them a perpetual license for something just because they paid for it.
- tim333 4mo agoThey provided some good products. I use Office 2019 daily and I used Windows for a decade or two. They do seem to have become more cash grabby in recent years.
- Henchman21 4mo agoRemember when we used to revoke corporate charters for anti-social behavior? /s
- LorenDB 4mo agoDon't forget, this is the same company that is killing Publisher with no true alternative to open existing .pub files. At least they aren't planning to rip Publisher away from perpetually-licensed users (yet).
- letmeinhere 4mo agoWhen I read "degrades functionality" I thought it was going to be some minor cloud-related feature, but holy shit they're disabling the ability to save files?? That article headline is really underselling it.
- JMiao 4mo ago[dead]
- daft_pink 4mo agoI also don’t love how if you have a microsoft account, it will immediatley convert your perpetually licensed products into office 365 products and force you to reinstall.
- glitchc 4mo agoTime to get cracking I guess... https://massgrave.dev/ https://massgrave.dev/
- tim333 4mo agoIs that the right product though? I use office 2019 and that says to activate but mine's activated - I need something to stop the remotely bricking. Maybe deleting the updater will work? (as in https://osxdaily.com/2019/07/20/how-delete-microsoft-autoupdate-mac/ https://osxdaily.com/2019/07/20/how-delete-microsoft-autoupd...)
- toriningen 4mo agoIt won't help, sadly. Your Office has a license file - you could have bought it or pirated it, doesn't matter. This license file is signed by Microsoft, and Office determines if the signature is correct based on the certificate that is embedded in the Office instance. If the signature is correct, Office trusts the contents of the license file to determine what you can and cannot do. Starting July 14th, the certificate itself that provides a public key for license signature verification will be no longer valid. So when Office will try to validate the license signature, it will no longer find any matching trusted certificate that is still valid, and conclude that it's not licensed anymore. Indeed Microsoft can issue a newer certificate with an expiration date set in 2099s, but they wouldn't. So far pirates relied basically on an official method of activation (not a crack). Now we need an actual crack that would either make Office think its certificate didn't expire yet, or skip the signature verification altogether.
- BobbyTables2 4mo agoI don’t understand why anyone would continue to use an EOL version of Office. Only makes sense on an airgapped system that will never exchange files with the outside world.
- deleted 4mo ago[deleted]
- yulia_dev_la 4mo ago[dead]
- vachina 4mo agoIronically my pirated copy of Office Mac will work perpetually. Arrr for the win.
- toriningen 4mo agoIf your pirated copy is using "serializer", you're actually using the official Microsoft's way of volume-activating Office, you just obtained it in a yarr-harr-harr way. So it will brick just like official copies would. We need an actual crack that would patch out the license verification code or at least make it ignore the expiration date or at least make it think it's Jan 1st, 2026 for the whole eternity.
- vachina 4mo agoUpdater service has been disabled since day 1.
- laserlight 4mo agoLouis Rossmann's video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KRnno9VIZx0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KRnno9VIZx0
- DavidPiper 4mo agoEveryone got real loud when Windows 10 was killed off. And it happened anyway. I expect the same will happen this time, as do Microsoft. Might be time to go back to a second, air-gapped machine so I can actually use all the software I paid for.
- wg0 4mo agoWhat's with these companies? Netflix and Amazon Prime shoving ads despite charging people. Everywhere you see there's the greed to extract more and more.
- cube00 4mo agoAdding ads to Echo Show devices after purchase was a bold move and they seem to have gotten away with it. https://advertising.amazon.com/resources/ad-specs/alexa-display-ads/home-screen https://advertising.amazon.com/resources/ad-specs/alexa-disp... Similar to Google adding ads to the Android TV home screens after purchase too. https://www.androidauthority.com/google-tv-star-wars-coca-cola-home-screen-ad-3577173/ https://www.androidauthority.com/google-tv-star-wars-coca-co...
- Hypathia 4mo ago[flagged]
- hbwang2076 4mo ago[flagged]
- nacozarina 4mo agothe faux outrage is maddening; you knew they were snakes when you bought the product and you bought it anyway
- emodendroket 4mo agoBecause there is not a full replacement for the product. Come on. Don't be deliberately obtuse.
- lokar 4mo agoAnyone who has paid any $ to MS in the last 25 years will get exactly what they deserve.
- kuerbel 4mo agoJust a few days before the release of EuroOffice, what a timing.
- realaaa 4mo agowow ... this has got to be illegal, right, right ??
- gbraad 4mo agoThey have the nerve to degrade and call it now a view-only?!!! This is the reason why pirtacy is justified; it was a perpetual license. I hope Europe is watching and governments walk away
- dreamcompiler 4mo agoThey do this to Office 2021 routinely if your computer is offline more than about 30 days at a time. I run LittleSnitch to keep Microsoft blocked; my copy of Excel periodically goes into "read-only" mode. So I unblock Microsoft, let Excel talk to the license server, and then block Microsoft again. Now Microsoft says my Excel will never work again. I'm pissed. Time for an FTC complaint.
- fithisux 4mo agoThere are many open source alternatives/upgrades to M$$$ products. No reason to keep using them. Literally none. I have been a happy exclusive only user of OO/LibeOffice since 2004. Some times I needed to use MSOffice for a paper. It was always problematic. I haven't use VS since 2007. I migrated to gcc. Never had a problem. SQLServer? Only for demo and at work just to pull or save data. Postgres always saved the day. Windows Media Player? MPClassic or VLC worked fine. There maybe other alternatives I use without knowing. Always without problems.
- guidedlight 4mo agoI think you are missing the point. It’s about software preservation and abiding by the implied expectations at the time of sale.
- fithisux 4mo agoM$$$ and other companies don't give a damn for software preservation. We do as a community. Many open source Windows deserve preservation. Even if they are abandoned. But blobs? No way.
- FailMore 4mo agoI’m trying to build SmallDocs, a new markdown first browser based document format (mainly for ease of use by agents): https://sdocs.dev https://sdocs.dev More info on a ShowHN here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47777633 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47777633
- inventor7777 4mo agoI am so glad that I am not forced to use Office. I know for some that they can't escape, but I would hope your workplace would cover it if so. I personally get by just fine with the built in converter tools in Apple Pages and Keynote, they seem just as robust as the Microsoft counterpoints. To be fair, I don't have those super complex and advanced word processing needs.
- SanjayMehta 4mo agoExplains why sites like stackcommerce have been selling discounted keys for Office.
- telotortium 4mo agoIf you only need to keep Office around to occasionally edit a file while preserving formatting, there’s now another option in 2026 - get a coding agent to do it for you. I’ve had Codex make substantial edits to financial model spreadsheets a few times, and it knows enough about how to modify office XML files to do that work correctly. Occasionally Excel didn’t like some of the files at first, but the view-only version of Office for Mac works well enough to allow Codex to discover and fix any incompatibility. Between agents and LibreOffice, no need for Office anymore.
- startpage_com 4mo ago[dead]
- submeta 4mo agoCompanies might need Microsoft, but why are people panicking who could replace ms office with other office suites? Why aren’t they abandoning Microsoft products? From office suites to windows?
- behringer 4mo agoIf digital purchases are not ownership then piracy isn't stealing.
- Angostura 4mo agoMeanwhile 2016 is still working fine…. Until Rosetta support is dropped.
- classified 4mo agoYou can always trust Microslop to screw you over despite any past promises to the contrary.
- crest 4mo agoI guess that means they are fine with users ignoring their rights too? Just crack their software until something better comes along?
- ethagnawl 4mo agoI haven't read California's "Stop Killing Games" bill but I wonder how close this comes up against it or similar laws?
- j1elo 4mo agoAfter Stop Killing Games [0] has been doing some big steps forward lately, plus movement in the same vein has been showing up in California, we now need to start working on a more general Stop Killing Software act. [0]: https://www.stopkillinggames.com/ https://www.stopkillinggames.com/
- tokenfaucet 4mo ago[flagged]
- lousken 4mo agoThere is a reason why EU is leaving Microsoft ecosystem...
- boringg 4mo agoBut isn't Satya supposed to be the second coming of MSFT if you listen to all the pods....
- flenserboy 4mo agoIt's clear they don't want stand-alone Office anymore. One gets the feeling, given how Windows has devolved, that they'd like to rid themselves of all desktop software so they can focus on the backroom, perhaps because the data they could acquire is tastier.
- adithyassekhar 4mo agoI should’ve pirated instead of buying Office 2021..
- timnetworks 4mo agoThis is why TXT and MD and RTF exist. This is why CSV exists. This is (some of) why some governments are moving away from this junk. But microsoft's incompetence keeps a lot of people employed.
- BetterThanSober 4mo agoI don't like the fact that a company can literally steal purchased product back from its users but I don't see how any company can realistically support a product for a long period of time, especially if it is a B2C perpetual license product If Office 2019 got a zero day RCE just by opening a Word documents, the optics would be tremendously bad for Microsoft and they had to patch it, which cost money and time. We're on a day where zero day can be found using AI, and it's getting better at it every iterations. No, saying that it is EOL and "yeah not my problem" wouldn't fly at their scale, just see XP and how long they have to extend the support period I'm not saying "but think of the multi-billion dollar company", I'm sure they can support it indefinitely, I'm just not sure if doing that is a good use of engineer's time
- h4kunamata 4mo agoOkay, things were different back then but right now you only use Microsoft products if you agree to never own it. Microsoft Office?? LibreOffice is opensource, has everything from Word to PowerPoint, it is free, and just works. Microsoft Windows?? Linux is free, the majority of folks use their Windows PC to Watch Netlix, YouTube, social media, write a thing or two. Distro Linux such as Mint Cinnamon is lightweight, fast, stable, I can use it to 3D design, 3D print, coding, video edition, playing, you name it, it all just works. The main problem I see is folks following hype like CachyOS, Ubuntu (dead dsitro harvesting users data), Arch, then have bad experience and blame Linux. You do not need Microsoft in 2026, full stop.
- sonamchauhan 4mo agoTechically, the OS should be able to isolate an application -- stop it being modified, and put it into 'Groundhog day' mode (at midnight, the date seen by the application rolls back to the previous day). This would 'keep' Office for Mac, won't it? The only loss would be the smart tag and functions that insert or refer to the current date in Word or Excel documents.