Office 2007 Trial as a Marketing Tool

We have a relatively new client, in which we are replacing another support provider. A number of the computers have Office 2007 Trial version installed that is just now expiring. I am sure the point was to demo the software and make the sale, but there was no communication with the staff.

End results of installing trial software without a formal evaluation process:
  • Staff are annoyed when trial software expires and ceases to work
  • Productivity is lost while staff figure out they can still open documents manually in Office 2003, but not by just double-clicking the doc
  • Client pays $$ for me to uninstall Office 2007
  • No sale is made because no actual evaluation is done
  • Waste of everyones time and $

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Remove OEMDRV Drive from Dell Server

I recently installed a Dell Server by using the Lifecycle Controller. This system uses a wizard to help with the installation of the operating system. In this case, I was installing Windows Server 2008 R2 to replace an existing Exchange 2010 server. As part of the installation, an OEMDRV USB drive is created by the Lifecycle Controller that contains the drivers used during OS installation. OS installation went well, but I ran into an issue afterwards. The OEMDRV drive was using E:, which I needed for my Exchange data. When you go into computer management, OEMDRV shows as a removable drive. However, you cannot change the drive letter or eject OEMDRV. By default the Lifecycle controller removes this drive after 18 hours, but I didn't want to wait that long. To force OEMDRV to be removed earlier, restart the server and press F10 to enter the Lifecycle Controller configuration. Then exit the Lifecycle Controller and reboot again. You don't need to make any changes in the configurat...
Read more

Expired Microsoft Exchange Server Auth Certificate

Image
When you install your first Exchange Server 2013 or Exchange Server 2016 server, a certificate with the friendly name Microsoft Exchange Server Auth Certificate is created. This certificate is self-signed and used for OAuth authentication between applications such as Exchange Server and SharePoint. However, it is also used for hybrid deployments between on-premises Exchange Server and Exchange Online. This certificate is unique because it is installed on all of your Exchange servers. The subject for the certificate is "CN=Microsoft Exchange Server Auth Certificate" and does not contain any SAN names with references to specific servers. It also has a 5-year lifetime. Which is just long enough for everyone to forget about it. I suspect that this certificate is due to expire in many organizations soon. Today I got a call from an organization with the following symptoms: Outlook clients were slow to start Outlook clients were not displaying the user's calendar Outlook clients...
Read more

Stop SBS from Shutting Down

We are currently migrating a client from SBS 2003 to SBS 2008. We've joined the new computer to the the domain, and run DCpromo on the SBS 2003 computer to remove the DC status. However, after seven days, SBS 2003 will start giving an error stating that it needs to be a DC and will shut down every 60 minutes ( http://support.microsoft.com/kb/555087 )! We need another few days to work on the migration. The Microsoft recommended solution for this is to insert disc 1, run setup, and remove the SBS 2003 component. This will leave a plain Win 2003 server without the shutdown issue. However, when I attempted to do this, setup errored out indicating that I was trying to upgrade to an older version which was not possible. Removing service packs may have worked, but here is a faster work around taken from a guy named Alan ( http://social.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/whssoftware/thread/af4fc3b4-bb50-4c5e-b09a-72ef2c3ac687 ) I've found a slightly more elegant solution to this problem rather...
Read more