Microsoft and the Disappearing Software

 Introduction

‘Big Tech’, as the corporate technology giants are often collectively known, have a business model that is based on planned obsolescence. Their argument for defending this practice in the face of recent and growing worldwide concern about e-waste is that they are merely responding to consumer demand, and must therefore ‘innovate to survive’.  What they carefully avoid highlighting is that their products are designed to be replaced frequently,  are usually not ‘upward compatible’ and don’t allow easy upgrades or repairs to the existing product. This applies not just to hardware but to the firmware (i.e. chips) and software (i.e. programs) that invariably control it. Indeed, one of the most frequently used tools in big tech’s ‘obsolescence arsenal’ is introducing new software and / or firmware that is incompatible with older hardware. Moreover, upgrades are often installed automatically, with users having to take active steps to switch off auto-install to prevent them happening.

A Shining Example

A good example of this is Microsoft (MS) Office Software. This is a widely used ‘suite’ of utilities used to handle  text and numerical data and includes the almost universally-used WORD and Excel programs. It has a long history going back to the early 2000s and beyond, punctuated by the issue of revised versions of the suite every 3 years or so (the latest was Office 2019 – this was the last of the conventional series and has now been replaced by Microsoft 365, which as we'll see later is only available as a subscription-based package).

The problem for the average user is that each new version requires a complete product upgrade, which of course must be paid for. In these difficult times, fewer and fewer of us have the necessary funds to shell out the £100+ required for an upgrade each time a new version emerges, and don’t really want or need a newer version anyway. Most of us are perfectly happy to continue using the version they have grown to 'know and love', and  simply don’t want the hassle and expense of upgrading and then having to re-learn where everything is in the new version.  We therefore just ignore the existence of the new version and carry on as normal.

This is fine…until our pc suffers some form of trauma or needs upgrading or replacing for another reason (e.g. hard drive failure / upgrade to a new SSD drive). We then find that the version of Office we were using on our old pc is no longer supported and isn’t any longer supplied by MS. 

So what, I hear you ask, why not just re-install the old Office version on your new pc ?

Unfortunately, MS have already (and quite intentionally) thrown a spanner in those particular works. Unless we bought our Office suite as a separate product on CD or DVD, or were supplied with it pre-installed on a pc and were supplied with the discs and product key to go with it, we’re stuck. 

A good example of this situation is a user of my acquaintance who had been using Office 2010 for ca 7 years, having bought it as an online upgrade with a product key, but now wanted to transfer it to another pc. This was to replace an ailing device which was then on its last legs.  

Microsoft (MS) withdrew support for Office 2010 some years ago and won’t supply it (or any of the other outdated Office versions following it) as a stand-alone product. This is quite simply because they want you to take out a subscription for MS 365, their shiny new  replacement for previous stand-alone versions of the Office suite. Since our user bought his Office 2010 copy online he has no physical copies on disc and is therefore effectively prevented by MS from using software that he paid for in good faith, and should therefore be entitled to continue using. If he tries to download a version from another source, he is inevitably faced with a request for a product key, and the key MS originally supplied when purchased it online originally of course doesn’t work, since it's a different 'product'. To add insult to injury, he has no desire to explore the 'wonders' of MS 365, and definitely doesn't want to have all his data stored in the 'cloud', and thus exposed to any hackers that care to abstract it...

What Can We do About it ?

In my view this reprehensible behaviour infringes the user's rights, and justifies the use of alternative ways of exercising his paid-for entitlement to use the Software for as long as he wishes. 

The only ‘help’ MS will give you if you contact them direct is to offer you a subscription to Microsoft 365 (at considerable cost – even the basic version is ca £10 per month in UK, now well beyond the means of many of us). This is no coincidence – as discussed, MS’s business model is based on planned obsolescence effectively forcing consumers to upgrade their software versions (and preferably also their devices) as often as practicable, and actively preventing earlier versions being transferred between devices. A new and unwelcome addition to this policy is that MS 365 is a cloud-based system and requires that your data and emails are stored in the cloud. This is not necessarily a 'safe' approach, given the ever more frequent data misappropriation 'events' that big tech has presided over in recent years.

A discussed in a previous blog, such blatantly e-waste-inducing marketing strategies are finally coming to the notice of regulators on the back of the move towards net zero. It will, I fear, take some years before vested interests loosen their ‘iron control’ on our pcs and tablets, and the practice is finally outlawed. The current government is already reining in 'green' spending plans and the likely next one has just indicated it is likely to follow suit, thus allowing the much-needed green revolution to go 'off the boil' yet again. In the meantime, we as users must be inventive and devise workrounds to ensure we can continue to use our devices as we, rather than big tech, would like…

A Solution for Office 2010

One such workround is fortunately still available for those stuck without a replacement copy of MS Office 2010, despite MS already having taken down the original website supplying it.

For obvious reasons, I will not be providing details of its availability in this blog. Anyone needing advice on how to get themselves out of a similar ‘hole’ is welcome to contact me via the comment option attached to this post – (you will need to convince me you don’t work for MS, though….).

Update 3.3.24: I can confirm that the package works with Windows 11, and thus provides a non-cloud based alternative to MS 365 which doesn't involve a hefty subscription.

 

First published 28.2.24