There's a free Microsoft Office option for Windows now, but it comes with ads

26 February 2025
That's not even the only caveat.

Sort by:

TPAA, 01 Mar 2025The Windows platform is dying. No innovation, because Micro... moreYeah we're also seeing how Apple and Samsung have become complacent after the ban on Huawei.

Windows 7 was really the last good version. Now it's just bad. I was forced to update my work laptop by my organisation a few weeks ago and I'm glad my personal laptop isn't a windows laptop.

Who even uses their app store?! I remember when it was new, I think on Windows 8, I was so excited and I used to try downloading apps from there but most apps were missing and those that were there were of poor quality and unstable. I myself considered learning how to develop those UWP apps. I'm glad I didn't go ahead. Most apps for which people use Windows - DAWs, video editors, games, etc., are still those old Win32 or Win64 apps, not the nonsense we see on the MS store.

And yes it's sad how everyone's getting away from purchase and into subscriptions. It's a lock-in that continues bringing in cash, yet the customer doesn't own anything.

    • T
    • TPAA
    • HKy
    • 01 Mar 2025

    rohitmishra, 28 Feb 2025I'm not even in favor of MacOS, or against Windows. I&... moreThe Windows platform is dying. No innovation, because Microsoft has had it easy being a monopoly. They bought out small rivals and killed innovation. The Microsoft Store, is full of low-rated software. Why are n't people developing Windows software? It has been around for 20 years and all they have are a few survivors?

    Subscription model makes owning software expensive and it is harming the Windows platform. Cloud based software is making Windows irrelevant, as you can run many things on a browser.

    I bought myself a MacMini 2 and I do like it. I am experimenting with it. I was forced after Microsoft announced it is ended support for Windows 10. I can't upgrade my WIn 10 PC, as
    some older software, which will not re-install on Windows 11.

      • T
      • TPAA
      • HKy
      • 01 Mar 2025

      Microsoft Office is the same product for 20 years. Try comparing Word 2003 and say Word 2021. How much difference is there between the two?. They are trying to make people buy the same product over and over again. I have a copy of Office under Windows XP, which we lost. Then another Office under Windows 7, which we also lost, as can't move to Win 10. Now paying a subscription for a software, for software which we once fully owned.

      Now Microsoft want me to throw away my Windows 10 device, and buy Windows 11. Sorry I don't have the money or the space. I still keep my Window 7 PC, as they have software which will not work on Windows 10.

      Software now is all rental subscription, which is expensive. In the past you could spend $50 and get a software for life. Now the same software is $50 per year :-(


        rohitmishra, 28 Feb 2025I'm not even in favor of MacOS, or against Windows. I&... moreFair enough. I hate them for Nokia fiasco too, they definetly helped apple to grow after killinng the mobile brand, most probably was intentional, but that's another story. Nice knowing that some people here actually know something about software. Kudos

          Carol-, 28 Feb 2025Well, because of onenote that is a boomer, but if i am not ... moreI'm not even in favor of MacOS, or against Windows. I've had this macbook for just over 3 years and have used Windows forever. The problem is just that I've grown a distaste for Microsoft. I'm only using a macbook because of m1 and because right now I don't have any specific use case for windows (games or certain apps).


          I will not hesitate to buy a Windows laptop or PC if I need to in the future. I'm only saying that in general I've moved away from MS apps because they are poorer than others in my experience. Outlook, Teams, Office - all of these apps are not suitable for me even though I've used them all for years. Right now, I only use them because my work laptop runs on Windows. As a software engineer, I often come across issues when setting up my development environment, which is often easier on Linux. That, however, depends on the tools we're using and how well they go with windows.

          In general, I try to stay away from MS. Even if they sold biscuits, I wouldn't want to eat those. Oh I'm also salty because of what they did with Nokia's mobile business and windows phones.

          Hence, I call it MicroSucks.

            Anonymous, 28 Feb 2025It's perfectly clear that you're cluless.Using words like "Imperative" or "Anti-Thesis" out of context and talking about UEFI does not make you any more knowlegeble, not even close. Especialy when you do not know or understand the importance of windows in an enterprise enviroment, or how linux is just a pretencious wrack and mac os follows. Also how none is perfect and none will ever be perfect, so stop exagerating with your pretencious words (some might have the fealing that you do not even understand their meaning) how windows is bad and focus on the whole problematic. If you think linux or mac OS are beter, well then it is your biased opinion and that's about it.

              • ?
              • Anonymous
              • SvB
              • 28 Feb 2025

              Anonymous, 28 Feb 2025Actually, for the Windows addicted, you can always try Atla... moreWho can trust Microsoft when even TPM(both H&S) is Failed by Design ? --actually the most evil fingerprint ever invented, which nowadays is imperative to be able to run Windows.

              &Who remebers what UEFI promised and what we got ?
              It has heavily outdated NIC driver ad you can't even flash it from DHCP properly as some 13 year old motherboards could.

              UEFI should be written strictly in Rust(Safe), nevermind that you could actually flash TinyCore into CMOS(dualBiOS) --the actual UEFI Promise ! --but Microsoft hates extremely optimized stuff. :( --in anti-thesis with Consumerism.

                • ?
                • Anonymous
                • SvB
                • 28 Feb 2025

                rohitmishra, 28 Feb 2025It's not about the OS. I hate MS more because of their... moreActually, for the Windows addicted, you can always try Atlas'OS'(mother of all scripts), but remember to use NextDNS because you will return to MS-DOS era in terms of Security..

                Nevermind it works +100% faster after you turn all the shit off.

                  • ?
                  • Anonymous
                  • SvB
                  • 28 Feb 2025

                  rohitmishra, 28 Feb 2025It's not about the OS. I hate MS more because of their... moreDistrowatch is the Way ! (avoid Debian/Ubuntu based though, always buggy and anti-patterned --- see Snap crap)

                    • ?
                    • Anonymous
                    • SvB
                    • 28 Feb 2025

                    Carol-, 27 Feb 2025 And using mac or linux?🤣🤣🤣. Stop pretending people, micros... moreIt's perfectly clear that you're cluless.

                      Anonymous, 27 Feb 2025P.P.P.S. : Nevermind All the Security Issues with those Une... moreSo to understand from your comment. In conclusion everybody should work for free so that you do not have to pay for something otherwise its called unfair. Well i hope you will also work for free for the "free market". I need a car, i hope i'll soon get the best for free otherwise is quite unfair and the society should really really have a cure for the "unfair" automotive industry. Let's see what else is unfair. Ah the internet, there should be a cure for this unfair businesses too, free internet and hardware no mater which. Let's cure them all.... ln fact let's "cure" the globe and have everything for free.

                        rohitmishra, 28 Feb 2025It's not about the OS. I hate MS more because of their... moreWell, because of onenote that is a boomer, but if i am not mistaking, you could have probably contact microsoft and ask them to restore your database to a previous version. This, as far as i know, is possible in enterprise enviroment, and that is not because enterprise is privilaged but because it can deploy their own cloud and have more control over the data. But the functionality is the same, so a ms employe might have been able to restore yours I am not sure though in what extent would they bother to do that, but well, at least trying, now, i believe, is to late.
                        Windows 7 was one of the best OS from microsoft together with '98, XP and windows 10. But i also find windows 11 to be good and yes they are still moving the "control panel" into "settings" making it unintuitive in the process, but i presume once people get used to it, will be ok. I personaly prefere the control panel.
                        Yeah microsoft does annoy a lot of people with their changes and not respecting the "don't change a running system", but in the same time, they are the only ones in the industry pushing forward, i just hope that they don't fall to much for the crippled ARM SoC trapp and loose the fight. Their strenght is offering a full blown OS that can do anything from working with big heavy apps to working on servers to offering a great gaming platform. Betting to much on ARM might make then neglect the x86/x64 platform and slow down (if not actuall stop) it's further developement causing them to kind of reset the OS capabilities to basics, which will put them side by side with mac crippled os. Not good, especially this days when people buy macs because they have iphones and well, apple does everything in their power to cripple their devices on other enviromens then apples own. ARM is a far cry from being abble to do heavy tasks no matter how many cores, and is a soldered SoC, not good for anybody but the manufacturer, who cashes in on hardware that goes bad. A whole Device randered dead if the mainboard has a small problem and let's say, does not turn on, no possibility to upgrade GPU, or CPU, very scatchy businisses.
                        I have a PC that is about 10 years old and is still my daily home office maschiene, and after about 4 years of usage (because i changed some parts and reinstalled wondows) it never slowed down on me, the only thing i changed in it, in 10 years were the Harddrive to SSD and RAM from 8 to 16 GB. For the upgrade i payd about 60 euros. So 60 euros in 10 years, after purchese, have fun achiving that with macbook and any other Computer with soldered hardware.

                          • ?
                          • Anonymous
                          • YYX
                          • 28 Feb 2025

                          harianilchandran, 27 Feb 2025This is far better than online free version of ms office as... moreThat’s what I thought. Thank you for clarifying.

                            Carol-, 27 Feb 2025 And using mac or linux?🤣🤣🤣. Stop pretending people, micros... moreIt's not about the OS. I hate MS more because of their apps. I've used outlook, onenote, tasks, their android launcher, and so many more. I was on a Windows phone for over four years and when I moved to Android, I continued using MS' apps on it. For my use case and in my experience, MS sucks big time. The final nail in the coffin was when onenote decided to erase my notes because of some stupid sync issues, even though i always used it online and used to manually sync my notes to be sure. There was one note which was very important to me and I was stupid enough to not have a backup elsewhere. I have never touched any MS app since then.

                            And as far as Windows (for PC) is concerned, every version after Windows 7 has basically been shit. 8 and what was the other one, 8 pro or plus or something? Both sucked. 10 was alright and they said it would be the last version number for Windows. I had an Asus mid-range laptop between 2016 and 2020 for my college, and it had Windows 10. It was alright, but it didn't age well. It got really slow and laggy after the 2nd year. I sold it and got myself a macbook air m1 (would never get the intel one) and it has been working great for over 3 years now. I'll be honest MacOS is worse than Windows for me, since I've always used Windows since around 2004. I recently had to update my work laptop to Windows 11 and I cannot believe how crappy it is. It is so ugly and unintuitive, just like MacOS.

                              WHO CARES, 26 Feb 2025I am already paying money for internet to ISP. Microsoft sh... more🤦🏻‍♂️ so for you if a randome person that works for a random ISP, is enough payment, nobody should pay you for your work, i understand.

                                Supus, 26 Feb 2025Only LibreOffice is worth using forever. 😜Yeah, but if their wouldn't be ms office, their wouldn't be libre office now wouldn't it?

                                  Anonymous, 26 Feb 2025"Hey Copilot, what's the definition of a bootlick... more🤦🏻‍♂️. When you have absolutly no idea what you're talking about

                                    potato4k, 26 Feb 2025Failing to see the point of this when the cloud version is ... moreBloatware it is not, but definetly an answer to pirating the software. Is it the best answer? Neah, they would have been smarter if they whould have just lowered the prices for a light version or something. Like a lot of functions will not work but the basics are there,for a very small fee.

                                      Anonymous, 26 Feb 2025Crawl out of your luddite rock, the way you pirate office i... moreWill like to see you working on a software company for free😉, every day 10 hairs a day. But what am i talking about, you probably never heard of visual studio or at least of visual code.
                                      As for "not alowing you to save on your hardware"? More like you do not know how too use the software.

                                        rohitmishra, 26 Feb 2025I'm happy being away from Microsucks. 😌 And using mac or linux?🤣🤣🤣. Stop pretending people, microsoft actually works in all situations, linux is jist not there yet and macos walks on expensive garbage

                                          1 of 5