Recently I had a hard drive failure on mty Powerbook G4. I bought
another computer and brought all previous applications from the laptop
onto the new iMac. When I try to start Entourage on the new machine, I
get a message saying that the product key is already in use.
Do I need to completely remove and reinstall Entourage from the product
CD. Or, is it possible to change the product code within the already
installed version?
On a related note, is there any process to have the Entourage recgonize
my previous identity folder?
thank you in advance.
The 'product key is already in use' message is automatically generated if
Microsoft Office detects another computer on the network running Office
applications with the same product key; it's part of an anti-piracy
mechanism, so there's not much you can do about that. You do not mention if
you have another Mac apart from the iMac and the Powerbook that could be
responsible for this message; if you only have those two, then it's your
Powerbook causing this problem. So yes, if you want to avoid getting that
message, you'll have to uninstall Office (which version, by the way?) on one
of the machines using the Remove Office tool. Or you could quit all running
Office applications on one machine, since Office only detects the product
key if one or more applications are running. Note that you are legally
entitled to install Office on your desktop and your laptop computers,
provided that you only run it on *one* machine at any given instant.
Also, make sure that you remove the Test Drive that came with your new iMac.
Again, use the Remove Office tool (you may have to reinstall the full
version afterwards). It'll save you lots of trouble in the future, as the
Test Drive, if not removed properly, is known to interfere with Office.
And yes, you should be able to import your previous identity. Make sure
Office is completely updated, quit the database daemon (in
Utilities/Activity Monitor), then copy your Microsoft User Data folder from
your Powerbook to your iMac's ~/Documents folder. Note that this will erase
any new messages you might have received on your iMac, as well as delete
calendar items and other Entourage data that are not on your Powerbook.
