You can install Microsoft Office 2007 Student and Home Edition on up to 3 computers. Each copy requires internet activation and in total you can only active 3 times. So for instance if you install Office on Windows XP then decide to install Vista and re-install Office - that counts as 2 usages. To get beyond this limit you will have to haggle with Microsoft technical support (or go to the "dark side" which I will not cover here today.)

Why not try Open Office? It is open source (i.e. free) and handles most of the heavily lifting of its over priced counterpart (the only thing that I have ever really needed MS Office for was dealing with antiquated Access Databases.) Many corporate environs (at least those that I have been involved with) have made the switch to open source solutions for basic word processing and spreadsheet usage unless it is an absolute requirement that the user has Microsoft Office. There is a high level of cross compatibility which means you can swap documents from one platform to the other and not miss a beat. You figure that in a company with 300 workers x $300 per seat for Office Professional ($90,000) - immediate savings can be found in using high quality alternatives like Open Office ($0.)

oh, had never heard of that...it is not imperitive that I have misrosoft office...I think I will try this open office business...thanks

Alright, next question!

/me secretly dreams of turning "girly gab day" into "shop talk with Bacchus."

Okay Bacchus,

since you're willing to dole out advice for free. ....


Is it possible to recover lost documents, because a dumb f*cker of a student decided he was going to upgrade one unit from Win 98 to WinXP.??? Doesn't ask me, doesn't tell me.

I had scanned docs on there that I was burning to CD in my spare time, so I could upgrade the damn thing. I just by chance went to do that, and when I booted up it was WinXP and no documents.

Unfortunately, your data is most likely beyond recovery - at least on a budget. There are government and enterprise level solutions, but you can imagine what it would cost to have someone counting ones and zeros with a high power microscope on your hard drive! Although there is a good chance that some of the original data remains untouched, Windows XP has no idea how to find it.

The only thing I can think of is SystemRescueCD, which is a Linux distribution that includes a variety of tools for data recovery. The reality is, your partition (where XP is installed) was not damaged, but rather overwritten. The odds are not in your favor unless the data you seek was not in the path of that giant eraser. However, if there was not a low level format performed (upgrade versus clean install) there might be a chance that the documents are kicking around somewhere. Just be prepared for hours of frustrating failures should you make the decision to attempt to raise data from the dead.

Answer: Prognosis grim.

I certainly don't have the time, patience or money, not to mention the know-how, to delve into the computer to try and recover the scans.

the project that was scanned is not lost forever, the hard copy is easily attained but I am miffed because I wanted it saved on CD just in case. Which of course means to rescan and another project for the next lacky I find.

I just wanted to see if there was an easy solution.

Now that I have indulged you, let's get back to the girl gabbing.

No wait, I have another question for Bacchus...

My sister got some kind of adware thing on her laptop and I went to install McAfee total protection on it...but I know I needed to remove the expired CW antivirus trial program...no matter what I do, it will not uninstall...am I going to have to reboot her computer to the factory defaults, or do you know any little tricks?

Your best bet at removing software that does not cooperate in its own demise is to go into windows safe mode and then cut the legs from under it. An easy to follow article on getting into Windows Safe Mode (All OS Versions.) Once into safe mode, go through the normal removal process.

CW Anti-virus? I have never heard of it. Sounds ominous. Are you sure that is not the Virus/Adware? If I were you I'd run hijack this and post your log here. Probably the easiest way to get to the bottom of things.