MS Office Keynote Number

[timinindy]

I purchased refurbished Compaq Presario 2178CL Notebook with WinXP Home and MS Office 2002 Small Business preinstalled, but no Office CDs or doc. Use of all MS apps (Word, Excel) requires entry of 25-digit Office keynote number first time. I didn't receive that number. Is there a way around entering that number?

[sdkfz]

Is the information on a second 'restore' partition? If not then you'll need to get it from the vendor.

[timinindy]

I'm not at that computer, but wouldn't know how to find a restore partition if I were. Compaq says vendor loaded Office, vendor says Compaq loaded it. Neither has required number. Looks like I'll have to do a full restore which will probably go back to MS Works.

[sdkfz]

The restore partition would just be another local hard disk when you go to "My Computer" Compaq does that a lot to save on disks.

[timinindy]

Thanks for your suggestion. I'll try it this evening.

[andyms18a]

Originally posted by sdkfz The restore partition would just be another local hard disk when you go to "My Computer" Compaq does that a lot to save on disks.

its true but they also hide the partition and you kneed some software to unhide it partition magic or something smiler
contact the shop you got the computer from and demand they give you a licence key as office was part of the package you got from them and don't let them fob you off report them to you local trading standers and microsoft if they don't help normally that threat alone is all it takes

[timinindy]

Thanks for all the experienced help! We'll see if I can do it.

[RayH]

If you have no paperwork, you have no valid Windows license either! The number you are looking for is with the paperwork.

[glc]

There should be a COA sticker on the bottom of the notebook, this is for Windows. If it's missing, Windows is not legal either and it's time to stir up the pot with the vendor.

[timinindy]

Yes, there is a WINDOWS COA sticker on the bottom of the notebook and it came with WINDOWS CD and papers. The problem is with Office -- neither sticker nor papers. Refurbished vendor and Compaq both claim they didn't install Office ("shipped with" MS Works), therefore they can't help me. I suppose original owner could have installed Office, but wouldn't that have been uninstalled by Compaq during refurbish? All I would like is for the computer to work with what they sent me regardless of who installed it.

[glc]

If it was *advertised* by the *vendor* as having Office, it's the vendor's responsibility to provide licensing materials. The cross finger pointing doesn't cut it. If it wasn't advertised as having it, there is nothing you can really do and technically it needs to be uninstalled as what you have is not legal.

[andyms18a]

try downloading aida32 from http://www.aida32.hu/aida32.php
and see if it gives you the office cd key