Curious how Office volume licensing works

[cubby1223]

One organization I do occasional work for had purchased volume licensing for Office 2010 Professional Plus some years ago. I do know for a fact it was a legit purchase, they had an account login directly with Microsoft that contained all the product information. Well that employee had left, and along with lots of turnover through the years, nobody really knows what the account was anymore. They just have the product key and installation media saved on the file server.

As far as the current directors presently care, everything currently works so why spend any time (and consequently any money) trying to deal with Microsoft to figure out access to the account.

I've never worked with volume licensing before.

(1) the key is valid for 50 installations. Does Microsoft keep track of activations forever, or do they reset over time? For example, upgrade a computer at a workstation, the old gets wiped clean, obviously the installation on the new system takes up one of the available installations, but does the old auto-clear out over time, or does that require using MS's account website to manually clear it out?

In other words, will one day in the maybe near future they upgrade another system and suddenly Microsoft finally says "Sorry, you have used up all your activations"? They only have 10 systems at the office, it's a nonprofit so I'm to assume it was a discounted package MS offered on the purchase. If the activations from the old systems clear out of MS's system naturally, they should never run into such a problem.


(2) I can only use the installation media presently saved on the server. Is there a specific reason for this? If I try to use the commonly available install sources for Office 2010 Pro Plus (digital river direct downloads), it says the key is invalid. Reason I tried this is the saved media is 32-bit only, and I'm someone who would just prefer 64-bit software on a 64-bit computer.

In other words, if the saved installation media is deleted or gets corrupted (bad hard drive, whatever), is there any way to install with this key short of figuring out how to gain back access to the Microsoft Account? (nobody left even knows what email address was used to create the account)

Thanks in advance for any info

 

[Dahak]

Well the key is valid for 50 installs, but you may not be licensed for the full 50. usually you get licensed for the amount that you need to install.
And yearly it should reset to the proper amount that you actually have to deployed as you have to renew it. (at least for the OVS program the we deal with mostly)

For the media, there is usually specific channels. There is the VL media which will only take the VL keys, then there is Retail and OEM medias.

For office there is not much need for the 64-bit version as 3rd party programs and plug ins will not work, and if you need them they(3rd parties) will have to make them when they wont.

 

[cubby1223]

Thanks for the info. That's interesting on a difference of number of installs versus number of licenses. So if a new workstation gets added into the office, without access to the account, they don't really know if there is a valid license for it or not.

A delicate situation wanting to make sure things run smooth and properly without annoying others too much.

 

[splat_ed]

I would be kicking it up the chain via email so there's a written record that you looked into it... Just in case there's an audit or similar