I find myself in a bit of a pickle, and not in a fun way like pickleball, which—combining elements from tennis, badminton, and ping-pong—is currently America’s fastest-growing sport.
Here’s the deal. A long, long time ago when I wore a younger man’s clothes, I purchased a copy of Microsoft Visio Standard 2010. It came in a box on a CD (that’s how old it is).
Since that time, whenever I’ve upgraded my computer, I’ve wiped my old machine (or recycled it) and loaded Visio on my new machine. I like this copy of Visio. It doesn’t have all the bells and whistles of later versions, but I know it inside and out.
Until relatively recently, I used the generic version of Microsoft Office. Last year (2021) I upgraded to Office 365. I’m a one-man company. I have a desktop PC in my office and a notepad PC at home, and I have Office 365 installed on both machines. Actually, I just took a look at my office machine, and my system says I’m running “Microsoft 365 Apps for Business.”
Last week, my office computer crashed and died, and I had to buy a new desktop PC. I love this new machine (32GB of DDR5, 2TB SSD… the list goes on), but there’s fly in the ointment and an elephant in the room (I never metaphor I didn’t like).
I just tried to load my copy of Visio on my new office machine, but the system said that I’d used up all of my installations.
The folks at the computer shop said that there might be a way for me to find out which previous machines were associated with the Product Key on my Visio disk and delete them so I could load it on my new machine.
If you have any suggestions on how I could do this, the radiance of my smile will fall upon you.
My advice Max? Forget it, bite the bullet and purchase a new one. On Ebay, you can get a sealed (allegedly) Visio 2010 for around $100, or a “Pre-owned” one for less (but obviously you’re taking even more of a chance then.
Let me tell you a tale. I also needed a new PC and got one with Win 10 included at a good price. I got MS office 2021 online for around $75 with some online courses, and installed it. But I noticed that the @#$%^&*+s I bought the PC from had not installed the promised DVD drive. Also, the network connection turned out to be VERY dodgy (I proved it was the built in network by disabling it and installing a plug in network card which worked perfectly. I should have got the @#$%^&*+s to just send me a new DVD drive and gone on with my network card, But I sent the whole PC back to them with strict instructions to transfer the hard disk to the new machine as I had installed MS office on it. But the @#$%^&*+s just sent me a new PC with a new hard disk and a DVD drive AND an extra 8MB RAM. So my MS office was GOOONE. I tried to reinstall and got the same problem you did. I tried to sort it out with the @#$%^&*+s but they were no help. I eventually did talk to someone at Microsoft and they were no help either (I said just disable it on the previous PC, they said they can’t (I know they can) but they said that the @#$%^&*+s could sell the old PC with MS office on for more money. Hopeless. Eventually I got a new Office 21 for about $60. But that does not include Visio no no use to you.
So as I said bite the bullet and get another one, and start hating Microsoft as much as I do. They are also a bunch of @#$%^&*+s.
If this happens again, MS told me I should uninstall Office before I send the PC back. Hindsight is a wonderful thing…..
Hindsight is the one exact science LOL