Is this warning a scam?

[MaggieW]

I've been getting a warning for the past three weeks or so which is in a box and which says "This copy of Microsoft Office is not genuine. In 8 days this Office application will be marked as not genuine etc etc etc"

It then has two option boxes below to click one for Learn More and the other one Remind Me Later, which I've been clicking. The software is genuine as far as I know as it's come from PC World and installed by an engineer, so am a little wary about the warning.

Can anyone advise please?

At what point do you get the warning? Do you have virus scan etc

Ignore it.

Also what is your operating system? and what version of office is it

I think I had to 'validate' my copy of Office when I got my computer home (from PC World, everything already installed), but not sure as it is over 4years ago and we were moving house at the same time.

I think it could be a virus - ds annoyingly downloaded a virus that kept saying our firewall was corrupt and we had to buy special software through a link on the popup. I googled it and it was some sort of worm thing and was able to get rid myself.

Thanks for help so far. No pattern to when warnings appear, but usually when I have Outlook Express open. We have a good virus scanner. We have Windows Vista and it's a 2003 version of Office which we've obviously been using for years.

What made me suspicious is that the warning says x days and then the number of days doesn't change for a few days so we've been getting an 8 day warning for around 3 weeks.

Sounds like it may be caused by an update to Windows / Office which has installed Office Genuine Advantage. That is producing a false positive, identifying it as not being genuine (did you have it on a PC prior to getting Vista?) See here for more info, plus some work arounds if needed. Note: Will need someone technically minded to try the work arounds.

Thanks Nannynick and RB - it sounds as if you've identified it. The programme was on another laptop before this one.

If I leave it until I'm able to get out computer person around which won't be for another week or so, will it affect the computer or can it be left safely?

No idea, but I suspect it may just be a warning prompt - given that it's been saying 8 days for the last 3 weeks!

I think it's to do with it being on a different computer. You probably have a single use licence so it's detected it's on a second computer and thinks you're running too many copies. It doesn't know what you did with the old computer you see. They're stupid like that