Microsoft Office 365 licencing - am I understanding it correctly?

[wotayear]

This may be one for the techies out there. I've never paid for MS365 in the past, but I've bought a new Windows laptop and it looks like things have changed since I bought my last one.

Last time (2015): Office wasn't installed, but my employer (a university) offered free Office installation "for personal and work use" so I logged into my work Microsoft account and downloaded it from there. I rarely used my personal laptop for work (as I have a work laptop) so was only ever logged into my personal microsoft account, using my personal files, with my work license.

This time (2022): Office 365 is installed, but when I open one of my personal MS files it asks me to agree to a temporary personal license for a few days, after which I'll need to pay an annual subscription. I checked at work, and I can still "get Office" but there's no longer any mention of it being for personal use. To avoid agreeing to the personal license, I can sign in to my installed Office apps using my work account, then open my personal files for free, but they are then subject to work policies and can be tracked and even opened by my work system administrators. (Unlikely that they would do this, but it would be possible if they had the right level of authorisation).

I know that I can open my personal files in the cloud-based versions of the MS 365 apps for free, but those online apps don't have the full features of the desktop apps.

So am I right in thinking that if I want to keep my personal MS 365 files to myself, and open them in the desktop apps, I now need to purchase a personal license?

Or am I missing something?

I have a personal one and a work one. Annoyingly the laptop seems to know this and keeps adding them (work laptop and personal iPad). I pay 7.99 a month because I'm too lazy to buy an annual one.

Hi @wotayear I work in software licensing and the rules for Microsoft changes a few years ago. If you have a personal device you need a personal license, we purchased a laptop last year and it came with free 0365 for a year then we had to subscribe it's £5.99 a month we pay. I have a Microsoft license on my work laptop but I can't use that on my personal device. Gone are the days when you could buy a license and pass the license key to to friends and family

Thanks. What a pain. (Though as my ISA's global tracker fund is probably partly invested in Microsoft shares, and Bill Gates does fund Malaria reasearch, I will suck it up).

There are free open source office suites you can use for personal use, there's Apache Open Office and Libre Office. They are fully compatible with Microsoft Office file extensions.

I use WPS office. I can store files on the cloud and edit them from my mobile phone and laptop, and yup, can open them in 365 if I need them for work.

I work for a uni too and have a similar allowance to use the license on a personal device. On my work and home devices I can see both my work OneDrive and my personal OneDrive at the same time and can choose where to save files to. I assumed that once a file is saved in my personal OneDrive it’s not accessible by my work IT (I’m not too bothered however if this is not 100% the case as our IT is so barebones these days I doubt they care about my docs)

I think your new laptop is getting confused. I would uninstall the existing M365 entirely and then download the apps fresh from the Microsoft website whilst you are logged in with your work account, this should then work ok (but you will still be the work-you whenever you use the apps on your laptop, up to you whether this bothers you)

The ‘additional’ licencing has changed over time, your 2015 free personal copy was based on corporate/enterprise licences which covered your main office desktop and an occasional use spare free copy.
Many years ago I was on a project where we had our main desktop and a laptop, so as long as we were the only user of that desktop and used either desktop or laptop at one time the licence permitted installing on both.
The rest of the desktop were split between those used by a main user and others which were shared.
The single user desktops allowed for those employees to install a home copy, but the occasional user machines didn’t

This moved on to the HUP / Home User Programme which enabled a work user in a participating company to buy a discounted copy for home use - either buy it yourself a company may pay on your behalf
Strictly speaking that home copy still wasn’t a separate licence and remained valid while employed & using a primary work copy and that your company remained licenced with the HUP scheme

When O365 went subscription based any ‘free’ HUPs pretty much disappeared, but there could be HUP discount subscriptions - my last offer didn’t benefit unless going for a multi user version
Though it may be worth asking if your company has a HUP licence, and also seeing if you can qualify under any of the school/student licences.

For a while I still ran my older HUP full software and supplemented that with just the free online app versions for my phone etc but now I use a personal subscription so that I’m up to date.

You can actually just buy it as a one off, but they hide this option on the website as they’d prefer you to buy a monthly or annual subscription.

Plenty of places online where you can get cheap software licences. I got office (the suite, perpetual licence, not 365) for about £20 last time I needed. Think you can even get 365 at a discount.
Such as here buyproductkey.com/INT/
Is probably exploiting some loophole but can’t be
illegal if it’s so openly online, have used it for windows installs too and never had any issues.