Surprisingly, you can use Office 2000 to qualify for the cheaper price for Office 2007
You have to watch Microsoft like a hawk, even their ‘firm update policy’ can change when you’re not looking.
For the past few versions of Office the upgrade policy has been strict – only owners of the past two versions of Office qualified.
We’re obliged to Microsoft for pointing out that the fine print of Office 2007 upgrades is broader than in the past:
- Office 2000 licensed users (as well as Office 2003 and Office XP) users qualify for the Office 2007 upgrade pricing.
- Any individual Office program (Word, Excel etc) from Office 2000, Office XP or Office 2003 will qualify
- Microsoft Works suite versions 2000 to 2006 will qualify
- Microsoft Works users (versions 6 to 10) will qualify
There is no upgrade price for Office 2007 Basic or Home & Student bundle which is very cheap already.
Including Office 2000 in the upgrade path is a welcome addition for many people – but sadly it’s not well understood. We asked around various software retailers and even some Microsofties – they all assumed (as we did) that only Office 2003 and XP would qualify for upgrades.
The ‘horses mouth’ details on Office 2007 upgrade qualifications is here.
