M$ is hiding stuff

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I need help.
I wanna uninstall/reinstall Office X. The install works great, but the uninstall is kinda tricky. Office created a buncha prefs.-files and my registration-number.
I've removed all files containing Microsoft or Office in the names, but still, when I install my number and name is there.
My only reason for doing this is because I've installed Office on 2 computers, and when I use both at the same time, 1 quits. Therefor I will reinstall with a new CD-key and hope it works better.

To wrap it up: How do I remove the file telling Office X my CD-key
 
Office knows when more than one copy is running by communicating via UDP across your LAN. If you set up the firewall on one of your machines to block the port which Office uses then Office will be unable to detect the other copy running. Without knowing which port Office uses to communicate you can still accomplish this by setting your firewall to block all traffic except for the ports you use. Download a utility such as FireWalk and use its built-in wizard to set up a medium-security firewall and it will solve your Office woes.
 
VPC does the same UDP checking. But your solution is akin to this:

"Doc, I have a splinter in my finger that I can't dig out."
"Sir, wait here while I sterilize my chainsaw. While we're at it, want a new nose?"

I'm afraid I have no knowledge of or desire to help with any M$ product. I just find the conversation so far very amusing.
 
Simple problem, factual solution, no judgment. I think M$ would be pretty pissed at me for offering this kind of "help" to be frank. It certainly doesn't help M$ protect their licenses.

"Setting up a firewall" may sound daunting to someone who's never done it but it turns out to be quite simple. The absolute minimum firewall you can make to hide Office from itself consists of this single rule:

sudo ipfw add deny udp from any to any 2222
 
Wooohoooo! Thanks for getting specific on that one. I'll try and figure out if VPC uses the same port, if it's like a standard or something, because I have my laptop and desktop on the same network, and it's really ghey when it yells at me for essentially legitimate usage. ... well, I borrowed a couple of the OSes I use, but the VPC license is real. I can't bring myself to pay money to microsoft when I hate everything they make. :)

It's nice to be in control of my own computer again.
 
Just wanted to say thanks as well.

It turns out that any running Office app on one machine will cause any other Office app on any other machine to fail their compliance check. I'm running Entourage on my G4 tower in the other room and tried to fire up Word on my iBook, but it "fails" the license compliance check. I've a legal copy of Office, but installing it on two machines is a little outside the lines, so I was willing to live with the notion that if I was running Word on one machine, it couldn't be run on another. But this is nuts.


Anyway, the UDP trick seems to have done what I needed. Thanks again.
 
so I added your line to my NATconfig and now I can use VPC on my laptop if I am also using it on my desktop. The reason for this is that my desktop keyboard is in dvorak, and trying to remember QWERTY (which Windows is running in) while looking at a dvorak keyboard is hard for me. So I launch it on my laptop if I have to type in an URL or something, relatively common since I do web dev. And since I often leave it running on my desktop, POW, the big productivity halting no no.

Eat me, it's my computer. I still get a warning on my desktop, but they end up being happy, so that's perfect for me.

Similarly outside the law, since the media companies seem to license their content but sell their media, I feel completely justified making presonal backup copies since it would require a re-purchase to replace damaged media, and that's against licensing. DVD's, MP3's, they're mine, I'm gonna listen to them, I know my use is legitimate. If I have to break the law, and their stinking security measures just so I can do what I should rightfully be allowed to do ... again under the law, well then the lawyers can come over and I'll buy them lunch. Everything is illegal in the US now, it's just a matter of which laws we decide to enforce. I'm all about giving artists their proper respect and money, and if I thought their industry was doing that, I'd support it. Until then, thanks for the hack to give me back control of my computer, I'll add it to my little black box of illicit knowledge that allows me to continue to be productive and morally sound in these United States, despite the inhibiting yet ineffective legislation and legality.

Pardon my rant, sometimes these things bug me.
 
This has nothing to do with this, but iI also feel like MS is hiding things:

Ever notice how in MS programs even on the mac, screen redraws purposely take time. Like opening up the view in powerpoint which shows small thumbnails of the the slides. Each slide appears, one by one, even on a P4. Then when you select a slide to edit it it takes even longer, but put that slide up full screen and it takes about no time. This inconsistancy seems to point to MS psycological trickery.

Simply a way to promote the semiconductor industry? or to give feedback to users to make them feel like they are moving faster than they are?

OK, this is the most anti-MS conspriacy ever, and I know i'm problably just shovling shit, but this is something that i've noticed repetedly.
 
the management system there seems to be geared toward employing the best and the brightest, making them feel useful, giving them lots of money so they never go anywhere else, yet managing and focusing their projects so badly that the end result is still mediocre despite the wonderful talent they horde, keeping the rest of the industry from using it.

Boy, I'm bitter, I should probably eat something.
 
Why are you guys so sure about this being a network problem? The same thing will occurs if you reinstall anything Marcomedia and some Adobe on a Mac that isn't on a local network... What you need to do (don't know about OS X, but in OS 9 that was the trick) is zapping the PRAM...
 
Laurent, this thread is about a known feature of Office and a way to circumvent it. It's not about a "network problem." Read the thread.

To address your idea, it may be that some applications read the PRAM and use that information to determine if a registration should be invalidated, but no application can, does, or will install any registration information in PRAM.
 
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