In October, Microsoft announced that the new operating system would use a 'Software Protection Platform' that would for the first time add activation to volume licenses. The no-activation scheme of Office in the enterprise contrasts with Windows Vista, which will require product activation in businesses. Copies of Office pegged as fake downshift into a reduced-functionality mode that only lets users view and print documents.

Office 2007 continues that practice, although it slashes the grace period in half to 25 launches from Office 2003's 50.

Retail copies of Office have required some form of activation - an anti-piracy program intended to cut down on counterfeits or copies that use stolen volume licensing keys - since the 2000 edition. 'So Office 2007 is using the old way of activating,' said Rob Helm, an analyst with Directions on Microsoft, 'which is really no activation at all.' 'The 2007 Microsoft Office system will continue to use product keys that bypass product activation,' Microsoft said in the online document. Unlike the retail versions of Office 2007, copies installed using volume license keys - the typical way large organizations purchase Microsoft's software - will simply skip product activation, the process where keys must be entered and judged legitimate.Īs with earlier editions of Office, the 2007 version will use what Microsoft dubs 'Volume Activation 1.0.' VA 1.0 also is the procedure used to install Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 in businesses.

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