Entourage licensing problem?

E

eliezering

My wife and I have used Entourage simultaneously for years on our two
MACs, while we were both on dial-up connections. We finally switched to
Comcast cable, and suddenly, Microsoft won't let us both open Entourage
at the same time. The 2nd person gets the message: "This installation
of Microsoft Entourage X exceeds the number of installations permitted
by the licensing agreement." Comcast had no clue and had never heard of
such a thing. Anybody ever hear of such a wierd thing?
 
B

Barry Wainwright [MVP]

My wife and I have used Entourage simultaneously for years on our two
MACs, while we were both on dial-up connections. We finally switched to
Comcast cable, and suddenly, Microsoft won't let us both open Entourage
at the same time. The 2nd person gets the message: "This installation
of Microsoft Entourage X exceeds the number of installations permitted
by the licensing agreement." Comcast had no clue and had never heard of
such a thing. Anybody ever hear of such a wierd thing?
Click to expand...

All the office apps do a check on the network to detect other installations
using the same license key. While you can install office on more than one
computer (with certain restrictions) under the EULA, you cannot run the some
copy in more than one place at the same time.

If you buy the student teacher edition of Office (for a considerable
discount from 'standard' office), you get three different license keys, so
can run office simultaneously on three different computers.
 
E

eliezering

How come we can still run the same copy simultaneously when at least
one of us is on dial-up?

Thanks Barry!
 
M

mmmmark

eliezering said:
How come we can still run the same copy simultaneously when at least
one of us is on dial-up?
Click to expand...

Are your computers networked together when you use dialup? My bet is that
when you went cable, you connected the computers to a hub, router or
directly to a modem that contains a hub or router. These two computers,
then being on the same subnet of a network are visible to each other. When
the little "honesty checker" starts looking around, it sees that you already
have the software with the same registration/serial number installed.

Is that possible? I know it stinks, but that is what the user license
allows. I have the student/education version that allows three copies and
it does the same checks over a network and "puts on the brakes" if it
detects anything other than 3 distinct, unique IDs.

Hope this helps,
-Mark
 
E

eliezering

Turns out that turning firewall on in both computers (System
Preferences/Sharing)
solved the problem.
 
E

eliezering

Turns out that turning firewall on in both computers (System
Preferences/Sharing)
solved the problem.
 
M

mmmmark

Glad that solved your problem. I forget the port number, but it must block
the port that Office listens on. Very interesting.
 
B

Barry Wainwright [MVP]

Solves the notification problem, maybe. Not the licensing problem....
 
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