5 ms·

I purchased the "Home and Student Edition" for my wife to use on her new MacBook Air. A few months ago she started writing short fiction, which we have since se

I purchased the "Home and Student Edition" for my wife to use on her new MacBook Air. A few months ago she started writing short fiction, which we have since self-published on Kindle. We had to switch to Libre Office, though, because when I contacted Microsoft support and asked them about the "Non-Commercial use" restriction, they told me writing a novel counts as commercial activity.

unsignedint 13y ago
Which it really confuses me as "Home" part. I can't think of so much case that full fledged WP useful in home context other than writing a letter maybe...
- scholia 13y ago
  It's Home & Student, and a lot of students use it at home, as distinct from in the classroom. Also, it's not just WP. Plenty of people do stuff that benefits from using Office. They have hobbies or are members of local groups that produce fliers or newsletters (church, youth, etc). By the way, Windows includes a free word processor, WordPad, that does what most home users need without them having to buy Office. There are also free viewers for Office docs...
tanzam75 13y ago
Home and Business only costs $60 more than Home and Student. However, I don't think there's a way to upgrade if you buy Home & Student and then discover that you need to do commercial work with it. You have to buy a new license.
jgamman 13y ago
I'm sorry but what did you just say? you can't write something on MS Word home edition and sell it for cash? seriously, i had no idea you could restrict something so basic as a word processor - FFS that's absurd!
- scholia 13y ago
  It's not absurd: it's a perfectly reasonable and entirely rational deal. Microsoft Office is commercial software costs roughly $300. If you want to use it for commercial purposes, you pay the price. However, there's a special deal where you get a Home & Student version for a third of the price, on condition that you don't use it for commercial purposes (ie as a replacement for the version you should be buying). A lot of commercial programs are available in cheap student versions or in free versions for home (non-commercial) use. This is standard industry practice. It's not a Microsoft thing.
Karunamon 13y ago
Wow. I always thought that the only restriction of the Home/Student edition was that it didn't come with Access or Outlook. They prohibit you from making money with it? That blows my mind. Not only is it completely unenforceable (the PR backlash from Microsoft doing an enforced license audit of the likely purchaser of that version would be immense), it's completely pointless. Again, the products are differentiated by what they lack. I wonder if the Microsoft legal department counts creating lemonade stand or yard sale signage to be "commercial use"...

unsignedint 13y ago

Which it really confuses me as "Home" part. I can't think of so much case that full fledged WP useful in home context other than writing a letter maybe...

scholia 13y ago
It's Home & Student, and a lot of students use it at home, as distinct from in the classroom. Also, it's not just WP. Plenty of people do stuff that benefits from using Office. They have hobbies or are members of local groups that produce fliers or newsletters (church, youth, etc). By the way, Windows includes a free word processor, WordPad, that does what most home users need without them having to buy Office. There are also free viewers for Office docs...

tanzam75 13y ago

Home and Business only costs $60 more than Home and Student. However, I don't think there's a way to upgrade if you buy Home & Student and then discover that you need to do commercial work with it. You have to buy a new license.

jgamman 13y ago

I'm sorry but what did you just say? you can't write something on MS Word home edition and sell it for cash? seriously, i had no idea you could restrict something so basic as a word processor - FFS that's absurd!

scholia 13y ago
It's not absurd: it's a perfectly reasonable and entirely rational deal. Microsoft Office is commercial software costs roughly $300. If you want to use it for commercial purposes, you pay the price. However, there's a special deal where you get a Home & Student version for a third of the price, on condition that you don't use it for commercial purposes (ie as a replacement for the version you should be buying). A lot of commercial programs are available in cheap student versions or in free versions for home (non-commercial) use. This is standard industry practice. It's not a Microsoft thing.

Karunamon 13y ago

Wow. I always thought that the only restriction of the Home/Student edition was that it didn't come with Access or Outlook. They prohibit you from making money with it? That blows my mind. Not only is it completely unenforceable (the PR backlash from Microsoft doing an enforced license audit of the likely purchaser of that version would be immense), it's completely pointless. Again, the products are differentiated by what they lack. I wonder if the Microsoft legal department counts creating lemonade stand or yard sale signage to be "commercial use"...