Reinstalling Office 2007 Enterprise without licensing details

We purchased 6x secondhand Dell Vostro 230 PCs from a business that was closing down.
All have Office Enterprise 2007 installed. Using Belarc, it has been identified that all computers have the same product key. After Office was wiped on one, when the PC was 'factory reset', it could not be reinstalled and a call to MS resulted in being told we need to buy a retail copy, as we could not provide the licensing details.
With Office Professional 2007 costing several hundred dollars, any suggestions to circumvent this, as the PCs were a legitimate purchase?

Hi there.

Why not just take an IMAGE from one of the other computers and restore it on to the "broken one". They are all "Identical machines" !!!.

When you get asked for Windows re-activation just enter the product number of the original computer I would assume these machines have either Enterprise or Pro version of windows installed on them.

I'd even suspect that as they are identical machines you wouldn't even have to activate Windows again !!! -- but to comply with the EULA you really should enter the ORIGINAL product key --so do it via CHANGE PRODUCT KEY (or type SLUI 3 from the Run command).

Office won't need activation -- no hardware change.

The BELARC data should give you the product key of the ORIGINAL windows key for the "Broken" machine. Alternatively the windows key might be on a sticker on the machine itself or perhaps on the invoice when you purchased the machines.

(To image the machines use Free Macrium to copy image to external device and boot from USB / DVD)

Cheers
jimbo

Hi there.

Windows 7 plus office 2007 are licensed to THE MACHINES and not the USERS -- so the user is perfectly entitled to use these machines with the installed software.

If this wasn't so then any computer you purchase with PRE-INSTALLED software would also be illegal !!!.

(What about TEMPORARY users working on a client's site -- they can use computers with software already installed !!!).

Say you purchase a machine for your DAD as an Xmas present -- it's perfectly legal for you to install what you like on that machine (paid for as well as free software) and then give the machine to your Dad fully working.

The only requirement is that the original user must not have installed the software on ANOTHER machine (Arcive copy is allowed BTW but ONLY as ARCHIVE).

My method posted previously in this thread is 100% LEGIT and LEGAL.

Cheers
jimbo

Enterprise edition is tied to installations, not PCs.
So a licence is per installation. If you install Office Enterprise 5 times on the same computer, that requires buying 5 licenses, not 1. It's a regulation specific to Enterprise editions.