Maureen wrote: I'm thinking that they are trying to disable the illegal downloads on purpose. The only problem with that, there are many office situations, where the programs is loaded by the IT person remotely, and the individual users don't have access to the original disc. I replied: In those cases, the individual user usually doesn't have sufficient rights to run an update anyway. The administrator can obtain or make a CD and do a network install of the update to all users. I added: Meanwhile, beaton, I have given you some ideas, but you didn't mention if you tried them. I ask: Finally, and this is a question for the group, I know that some computers come with recovery partitions and without Windows or recovery discs. Some of these come with trial versions of Office. Are there scenarios in which people with these computers can upgrade their trial versions of Office to permanent versions just by paying Microsoft or their computer manufacturer for a license? In that case, there would be no installation discs (but the installation files would have to be on the hard drive, obviating the need for installation discs when installing updates). Joel -- No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.1.394 / Virus Database: 268.7.3/350 - Release Date: 5/28/2006 ************************************************************* You are receiving this mail because you subscribed to mso@xxxxxxxxxxxxx or MicrosoftOffice@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx To send mail to the group, simply address it to mso@xxxxxxxxxxxxx To Unsubscribe from this group, visit the group's homepage and use the dropdown menu at the top. This will allow you to unsubscribe your email address or change your email settings to digest or vacation (no mail). //www.freelists.org/webpage/mso To be able to use the files section for sharing files with the group, send a request to mso-moderators@xxxxxxxxxxxxx and you will be sent an invitation with instructions. Once you are a member of the files group, you can go here to upload/download files: http://www.smartgroups.com/vault/msofiles If you are using Outlook and you see a lot of unnecessary code in your email messages, read these instructions that explain why and how to fix it: http://personal-computer-tutor.com/abc3/v28/greg28.htm *************************************************************