How to obtain Microsoft
Office for Home Use

The Microsoft Campus Agreement has been renewed with an effective date of December 1, 2009. As in the past, the agreement includes Home Use Rights that allows faculty and staff in participating departments, as well as Graduate Research/Teaching Assistants who were included and paid for in the FTE counts, to license and install Microsoft Office products on their personally owned computer. Effective October 1, 2009 we are changing from the Work at Home program to the Home Use Program. There are two major differences between the two programs: First, the 100% work-related use stipulation no longer applies, and second, a University index is no longer necessary.

Home Use Eligibility Requirements

1. Department is covered under the Microsoft Campus Agreement (MCA).
2. Employee works in a MCA covered department OR is a Graduate Research Assistant/Graduate Teaching Assistant included in the Full Time Employee (FTE) count and paid by the university.

Obtaining Microsoft Office Home Use media

With the new Home Use Program comes a new process for obtaining the software.

• Faculty, staff, and Graduate Research/Teaching Assistants (customers) who believe they are covered under the Microsoft Campus Agreement can check the list of participating departments to see if their department is included.
• Customers who believe they are eligible may submit a request to the OSU Computer Helpdesk (OCH) at:
  http://tss.oregonstate.edu/OCH/cgihelpform/index.php?page=homeuse
• OCH staff will confirm that the customer is included under the contract and send an email with an authorization code and link to the Microsoft Home Use Program website
• Customer visits Microsoft Home Use Program website, enters a valid OSU email address and the authorization code
• Customer selects PC or Mac version of Microsoft Office and orders a CD if they want one.
  • Current pricing is $9.99 for Office and $12.99 for the CD.
  • A valid credit card is required to complete the purchase.
• Customer receives email from Microsoft with link to Home Use Program download site
• Customer logs in to Home Use Program download site from the computer Microsoft Office will be installed on
• Customer downloads and installs Microsoft Office
• If customer ordered a CD it should arrive within 4-6 weeks.

Microsoft 2007 Compatibility Pack

With the release of Office 2007, Microsoft stopped distributing Office 2003 for home use. If you don’t want to use Office 2007 at home, there is a compatibility pack available from Microsoft that will allow Office 2003 to open Office 2007 documents.

To procure the compatibility pack:

1) Go to http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/products/HA101686761033.aspx

           a. You can also search Google for “Office Compatibility Pack”

2) Click on the link under “Installing the compatibility pack”

3) Click download, select a location to save the file

4) Open the file to install the compatibility pack.

5) You will now be able to open Office 2007 documents with Office 2003.

           a. Note that Office 2007 documents are opened as temporary files, so you will need to resave them as an Office 2003 document.