Solved Upgrade to Windows 11

OK, it seems that the time has come. I am generally late with upgrading the OS, since typically I don't see any advantage to me (let's set the security update issues aside for now). In fact, the way I see it, every new iteration since Windows 7 was a step in the wrong direction. The reason for it is that I don't want to use a dumb terminal, I want a computer that works without internet. I have a computer to compute, not to browse news or shop in the internet. Because of this I absolutely hate the forced transition to cloud-based software. And so my biggest concern with the update, is whether my standalone Microsoft Office (2021 and 2019, on different PCs) will survive the update. I absolutely refuse subscription software and cloud based apps. Therefore if there is any danger to losing my standalone office, I will not upgrade, with or without security updates, which for me a not even close to a concern.

Now, (sorry for the rant) here's the problem - my Office was not purchased separately, but through a University (and hence at a discount, hey, you could pay more, but why?). And hence I don't even have a license key, the office came with some installer and once installed it was already activated (or I have forgotten how it worked, perhaps I had to connect to some server or something). Anyways, I'm not sure I could reinstall it if I lost it, and so I am interested to know, if it's possible to upgrade to Windows 11 and keep the working Office at the same time.

Short version: will my office still work after the upgrade or will I have to reinstall, reactivate, or do anything else of the sort?

I can't comment if your Office 2021/2019 will run as properly registered software on Windows 11 as I ditched Microsoft Office years ago and use LibreOffice instead. LibreOffice is free, no licence required, and is a very capable office suite.

However, on the issue of getting licence keys for them you could try Mr. Keyshop. I bought a licence key from them for Microsoft Windows 10 Pro. and the key worked without issue. So have a scratch around the Keyshop site and see what you can find.

If it was me I would in the first instance just switch to Windows 11 and install you Microsoft Office software. It might work out fine. If not you can always just uninstall them or purchase a licence key.

P.S. I have no financial connection to Mr. Keyshop. I'm just a user that found them to be reputable.

Thanks. However, I'd like to hear from someone who had experience of upgrading to Windows 11 to see whether the installed Office was just working after the upgrade or something needed to be done about the license.

All I can say is that "Office should survive and update to Windows 11". I have been running Windows 11 on my laptop since December 2021. It was originally a Windows 10 system when I bought it, but I don't remember when I bought it. Plus, I run MS Office 2007, that I bought a long ago, before this laptop. It's MS Office 2007 is old, but serves the purpose. I also have the same MS Office 2007 installed on my Windows 10 desktop. The only difference is that, I do have a CD and do have a installation key, which is good for 6 different devices. I installed MS Office 2007 when the laptop was new and never had to re-install it since. It just works when I need it.

Since I updated to Windows 11, I have received tons of updates without any issue. The list for Cumulative Updates (25) only goes back 6 months (5/5/2024) and the list of Security Updates (50) only goes back to December of last year (12/31/2024). Never in that time has my MS Office been affected.

Possibly having a full, restorable, backup available, before you upgrade may help. And you have time, after the upgrade to back it out. However, you have put off Windows 11 updates for so long, no one is going to give you a guarantee. You are pretty much on you own.

I can run without the internet, but I choose not to limit myself. I do, and have done, a lot of computing. I have been working with computers since I graduated high school (1967). Today, I have Cygwin64 installed so that I can have some Linux at my fingertips. With Cygwin64 I can write in SH, GAWK, C, C++, Fortran, Assembly, Python, etc.. I also use it to write Verilog simulations (Veriwell). That works very nicely with GTKWave, for displaying waveforms, which runs on Windows.

If it is on the machine in your specs, yes, it should upgrade without any problem and your office should remain after the upgrade.
You can run the PC Health Check to make sure the PC is eligible for upgrade. If it is being offerd through Windows update, that is a good sign it is.

Regarding your Office licenses, if ever necessary they can always be installed without a license key IF they are registerd to your Microsoft account. You can check using your MS account dashboard. If you do not use a MS account, you would not be able to re-install them without knowing the license key.

I strongly recommend that you make a system image prior to upgrading using third party imaging software of your choice. Also make sure that you create that software's recovery usb media.
Some are paid, some are free. A newcomer not on this list is Hasleo Backup Suite which is free. You can find a lot of Info about it by searching the forum.

@antspants provides excellent information about Hasleo here

Thanks, I assumed that much, but wanted to hear from someone who actually did it. With this software you never know. I suppose I'll try on a "non-mission-critical.

About the Office license - somehow I could not "register" it with my Microsoft account. I can log in, my Office will show my Microsoft account, but when I go to the account itself, it shows zero Office products. I guess what I buy from the University is a volume license or something that cannot be associated with a personal Microsoft account, I am not sure. To be honest, all these rules seem unnecessarily convoluted.

Yes, VL is the pits when dealing with licenses. Just know that if in the future you ever have to buy another computer with a different operating system, you won't be able to install those versions of Office; likewise with the system you have if something happens you have to clean install the operating system. I suggest you make it a habit to make regular images going forward so you will be able to at least recover your current computer.

As was suggested, there are really good, free, office suites that are compatible with MS Office files with very little learning curve. Both Libre Office and OpenOffice come to mind. There are also sites that sell deeply discounted Microsoft Ofc licenses. So you might keep that in mind.

unifex said:

Thanks. However, I'd like to hear from someone who had experience of upgrading to Windows 11 to see whether the installed Office was just working after the upgrade or something needed to be done about the license.

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That would be me. . Office 2019/365 will work perfectly on Windows 11. I have not had any trouble, and I've been using Win11 since the first BETA came out a few years ago. I installed the BETA and used it as my regular OS and haven't looked back since.

glasskuter said:

As was suggested, there are really good, free, office suites that are compatible with MS Office files with very little learning curve. Both Libre Office and OpenOffice come to mind.

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OpenOffice is not a good move. It hasn't had a major update in years and is cruising into obsolescence. LibreOffice is the way to go and it has much better capacity to deal with MS Office files than OpenOffice has. However, the compatibility is not perfect. As it stands MS Office Word can natively open LibreOffice Writer .odt documents anyway and that has supposedly been the case from MS Office Word 2016 and onwards: Use Word to open or save a document in the OpenDocument Text (.odt) format However as MS note themselves this facility is also not perfect.

For some more detail on preferring LibreOffice over OpenOffice see this post on another forum: [Tutorial] Considering a Switch from OpenOffice to LibreOffice? Some Useful Information

Thanks everyone for the helpful input. I tried the upgrade on the "test" laptop and it worked without any problem. I just downloaded the Install Assistant from Microsoft and it installed Windows 11 while I was able to use the laptop. At some point it asked to restart, and now there is Windows 11. Office works and I didn't have to do anything with the license. So that's that.

As far as getting a fresh OS or Office license, sure there are websites selling "unused volume licenses" for literally pennies. Or one could simply buy a license on the Microsoft website. All of that is clear. However, when I have something that is already working, my first intention is simply to keep it. And of course, as long as it's possible to use the standalone MS Office, that's what I'd like to use. I know there are alternatives, but they are not very good at working with MS Office files and Office use is too widespread.

Anyways, thanks again, I guess the problem is solved.

unifex said:

As far as getting a fresh OS or Office license, sure there are websites selling "unused volume licenses" for literally pennies. Or one could simply buy a license on the Microsoft website. All of that is clear. However, when I have something that is already working, my first intention is simply to keep it. And of course, as long as it's possible to use the standalone MS Office, that's what I'd like to use. I know there are alternatives, but they are not very good at working with MS Office files and Office use is too widespread.

Anyways, thanks again, I guess the problem is solved.

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Yep, if it's not broken. . Don't fix it. . lol