Nothin to do with rum Dept: Microsoft Office Starter

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Capn Jimbo
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Nothin to do with rum Dept: Microsoft Office Starter

Post by Capn Jimbo »

This may well happen to you too...


Many of us use Windows 7 (or earlier) most of which came with a deballed version of MS Office called Microsoft Office Starter (in my case 2010). This version came with a starter Word and spreadsheet only capability and was often bundled with the startup software bundled with your computer. Office Starter works fine, is nice - but is very limited - and when it fails...

You may have a problem. I did.

If you're smart you go into control panel and first try to "repair" it. If you're smarter you will first shut off the computer and restart before trying your repair, and if you're smarter yet you'll restart after you "repair" it.

But here's what you absolutely DON'T do...

Do NOT "uninstall it" for one simple reason: if you do uninstall it (like I did), you can't get it back without reinstalling the whole system from scratch and lose every single thing you have so painstakingly done since your installation - or - restore from a backup, and still lose some stuff. Nowhere are you warned that "uninstalling" Office Starter means you can't get it back without buying the full blown MS Office for maybe $140! But fortunately, I'm not a big fan of Microsoft anyway, other than having to have an operating system.

Such is life, but there's..


An answer...

Yes! No worries. And while you're at it, uninstall the teaser for "Microsoft Office" as well, but be sure to leave Microsoft Office Click-to-Run, as it can help you in many other ways. To replace the bullshit Office Starter you have several FREE choices: Google Docs (which operates in the cloud, which means Uncle Sam will instantly record every word you write), or the famous, well developed and free Open Office.

Open Office is super hip, very easy to pick up on, and has five different sub-programs for Write, Calc (spreadsheet), Impress (presentation), Math, Draw and Base (database), plus some useful templates. Libre Office is a lookalike spinoff of Open Office, but I tried both and chose Open Office which did a better job picturing fonts - essential for me.

Both of the latter are excellent because they reside on your computer, are open source and compete very well with MS Office, but without the $$$. As in free. Pick either Libre or Open and install it. For Libre then change your file association for say *.rtf and .xls to Libre and then Libre seems to pick up all the other MS Office associations. With Open Office you have to change the file associations manually, but the picturing of fonts was worth it.

Frankly, I think its worth getting rid of Office Starter anyway - either Open Office or Libre Office are FAR more comprehensive...
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Capn Jimbo
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Post by Capn Jimbo »

Update...


As you know (above) I was forced to find a replacement for the MS Office Starter that I mistakenly uninstalled (and not easily replaced). This was especially true inasmuch as I refuse to pay $150 for the full MS Office, so after much searching I found Open Office, a long established and well-respected FREE download.

Open Office is terrific.

Not only is it NOT deballed like the MS Office Starter series, but has the full capabilities of the pay-for-play full MS Office. Open Office is an easy transition, and frankly I like it much better. It's like rum: with MS Office Starter you get so used to mediocrity that you don't know what you're missing.

Had I known about Open Office earlier, I'd have gotten rid of MS Starter long, long ago. Here's a safe download from CNET...
http://download.cnet.com/OpenOffice-org ... 63109.html
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Post by Dai »

https://www.libreoffice.org/download/portable/

Basically the same thing as openoffice but a bit more up to date.

try the portable version out to see what you think of it.
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