This week one of my service calls was at a client with a Microsoft Windows laptop. Her main problem was opening Microsoft Word 2013 documents. It had worked fine a few weeks ago, but lately she gets a “Something went wrong” error message when she starts it from the desktop. Opening a document first results in the same problem. It suggested we repair the installation. We tried opening the Office 2013 entry under Control Panel/Programs to try to repair it. But we were informed Office 2013 was not installed and do we want to remove the entry. i searched for folders relating to Office 2013 and found a few. One was empty and another one had executable files for Word and Excel. I tried running them and got the same error message.
I wanted to reinstall the whole Office suite and we started searching for her DVD or login information for Microsoft. We found the Office installation package in her desk, but the product key was missing. We couldn’t install it without a product key.
Instead of trying to find the product key I downloaded and installed LibreOffice suite which opens and saves files in many formats including Microsoft Office. Its a powerful office suite which I use and it is free. Now the word documents could be opened and saved just like before.
If my client finds her product key and we get Microsoft Office installed, LibreOffice can stay installed right along side Microsoft Office without any problems. I want to emphasize to keep track of your Microsoft product keys so you can re-install later if necessary. It saves you much grief later on.
