This program is all of the sudden asking for a serial number and will only allow viewer mode. Any ideas why??
Kingsoft Office Pro EXPIRED!??
(22 posts) (8 voices)-
Posted 13 years ago #
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A few questions.
- Did you update this office suite?
- Do Spreadsheets and Presentation also work in viewer mode only?Posted 13 years ago # -
I can't help you with KingSoft but you might want to consider the always free LibreOffice. Description from the link "LibreOffice is the power-packed free, libre and open source personal productivity suite for Windows, Macintosh and GNU/Linux, that gives you six feature-rich applications for all your document production and data processing needs: Writer, Calc, Impress, Draw, Math and Base. Support and documentation is free from our large, dedicated community of users, contributors and developers. You, too, can get involved!"
Posted 13 years ago # -
If it helps...
My *guesses* are that something changed (overwrote, deleted) Kingsoft files in Windows' user section, or it wasn't for some reason registered to start with & was running as a trial up to now. If it was the 1st case, & if you've got a backup, you should be able to restore just those Kingsoft folders. If not, then you might want to try the free Kingsoft versions -- same apps, just fewer features -- or as Chris suggested, try Libre Ofc, which is also available in portable format from portableapps.com... Note: you may also want to install their portable Java setup at the same time for full functionality.
Another alternative you may/may not like better is Wordperfect... I prefer it over Open Ofc & Libre, but that's me. It's not a free ofc suite, & I haven't seen Corel drop the price as drastically as their other software when they have a sale, but in the past I've always been able to find OEM discs/licenses Very Cheap, <$20 on-line. You might also want to try out the Ashampoo ofc software -- try it 1st, registering for their e-mails, & after a few weeks you should start getting some good offers to buy it cheap... their offers get better the longer you wait.
Posted 13 years ago # -
I used to use Word perfect. It's a good all round package well worth getting at that price. I'm considering deleting the kinsoft alternative as there are things i don't like about it such as only being able to open one document at a time (though I haven't checked whether i can change some setting to allow more) plus a few more niggles. Until recently when I purchased a copy of Office 2010I'd happily used a multi licenced copy of Office 2003. I do like the new look office with the tabbed pages accessing all of the various features, but I could only afford one licence. Often at leasy three of us are accessing Office at amy one time, so I'm not able to use the 2010 version on all computers as you're only allowed to use it on one comuter at a time, so it looks like I'll have to reinstall the old one.
All that said, Kingsoft Office was okay for most applications. It's just a pity i'm so fussy, lol.
Posted 13 years ago # -
I don't know what availability is in the UK (or Germany etc.), but I just typed "wordperfect oem" into Google, & Google Shopping came up with Corel WordPerfect Office X5 Standard Full C500 -- $13 - 9 stores. Copied from one of those 9 stores:
"Includes:
* WordPerfect X5 - Word Processing * Quattro Pro X5 - Spreadsheets * Presentations X5 - Slideshows & Presentations * Nuance PaperPort 12 SE - Document Scanning, Imaging and Management * Mozilla Thunderbird for WordPerfect Office - Email Management * Corel WordPerfect Lightning - Digital Notebook"
If anyone's interested Corel has a Wordperfect trial download: http://www.corel.com/corel/category.jsp?cat=cat4130083&rootCat=cat3610091
For those unfamiliar with Wordperfect, I first used v. 5.1 I think -- it came on floppies -- & it's defining characteristic was a split screen where you could do all your formatting from the keyboard, maybe a bit like HTML. It was actually pretty much the pro standard worldwide, but then along came Windows & Microsoft Ofc, & Wordperfect, slow to jump to the new platform was kinda left behind. At any rate, point is that being around for so many years, Wordperfect Ofc is a solid, stable, mature office suite with a full set of pro features. It doesn't have Microsoft Office's Ribbon interface, but Wordperfect is a lot easier for my wife & sons to just jump into & use on the relatively few occasions they need to use a word processor.
Posted 13 years ago # -
Thank you all for your input. I have not updated it, and it was surely registered properly on the give away day. I do have Libre Office, but it takes so long to load. I use it regularly, but, as I said, loading time... Kingsoft was so fast for quick editing. I did e-mail them about it, but I'm not expecting much in a response.
Thanks again
Posted 13 years ago # -
They do have a Free version available.
Posted 13 years ago # -
You can get Microsoft Office registration keys from online stores relatively cheap now, with copies of the actual software for as little as £10/$15. for example I purchased an extra Win 7 Ultimate keys for £25 each. I already had the software from an initial purchase (which cost me £170).
Did you use a file/registry cleaner (e.g. Advanced System Cleaner or CCleaner) since installing Kingsoft? They are notorious for deleting registry keys?
Hopefully the program will be given away again sometime in the future.
Oh by the way, my reference above about only being able to have one copy open at one time. It's not absolutely true. Basically if you want more than one open it opens it in a seperate tab. I'd forgotten about that feature. I still like to have several documents open at the same time rather than tabbed, but at least it's not as bad as I first though.
There is a slim chance that Kingsoft may give you a key. I've written to several developers over the five years that the giveaway project has run and asked for help for similar reasons to yours and have been given a key. As I said it's a slim chance, but well worth trying. I usually say I was really impressed with the program, but at this time can't afford to purchase a full licence for the software, and am disappointed that the program didn't register properly when I installed it on the day of the giveaway. The free license given via the giveawayoftheay was a God send while it lasted because.... blah Blah blah. :)
I hope this helps.
Posted 13 years ago # -
christoria, you're right about LibreOffice being slow to start. It's a known issue and one that they really need to address.
But if you just want a small Word Processor then try one of these recommended by Gizmo: Best Free Word Processor per the link: If you don't write novels, reports and documentations all the time, but like to use a Word Processor just for letters, memos and how-to's, you will love some of these word processors. They are mostly lightweight, load in a jiffy, and give you many more features than those you find in Wordpad that comes with Windows.
I haven't tried any of them. I use Word and Wordpad simply because I'm used to them.
Posted 13 years ago # -
Thanks Chris
Posted 13 years ago # -
Hello,
I have not done anything I can remember to change the registry. I also haven't heard back from Kingsoft yet. I did get the free version, and for quick editing, it is exactly what I wanted. I still use Libre Office for the big stuff, or another program that I recently found to be extremely useful - and free - Scribus (http://www.scribus.net/canvas/Scribus). So, that seems to be that.
Thank you all for your input and help with this. This is a great forum.
Posted 13 years ago # -
If it helps anyone, Scribus is a neat alternative for layout, DTP etc. when you can't or don't want to pay big bucks for something from the likes of Adobe. It uses the GIMP for image editing, & Ghostscript for for EPS etc., both downloaded/installed separately. The portableapps.com version is kinda neat in that it searches for & uses portableapps.com versions of the GIMP & Ghostscript you've installed to the same PortableApps folder/drive.
Posted 13 years ago # -
I'm having this very same problem. I used to have LibreOffice, but I kinda liked Kingsoft Office...
My answers to the first to questions are: No I never updated it. If it was updated, then the office suite did it by itself. All three Writer, Spreadsheets, and Presentation work only in viewer mode too.
Btw I saw someone said they could only open one document with Kingsoft; for me I was able to open multiple documents in tabs. They may have not noticed that there are tabs there, but it's really nice.
Anyways, I actually did get a warning from the program a few days before that there were too many unauthorized copies of the suite running around, which was why it was disabled. I just installed the original version that I downloaded from GOTD.
However I did make a backup of what the GOTD wrapper did to my computer as it licensed Kingsoft Office. I do this with all my software that I expect I'd want if I ever switched PCs. This included a small "oem.exe" side-program, and a license key. I checked if I could enter that license key when Kingsoft Office prompts me as it lets me choose how it starts up, and it said that license key already exists (screenshot of the license key window). So there was nothing changed on my end. I will be contacting Kingsoft about this issue then in a few days then post here for if anyone else has the problem...
Posted 13 years ago # -
Yup, all the same exact problems. Even the same license key window. I did reinstall the original, also. Haven't heard back from the company yet.
Posted 13 years ago # -
Don't think it's registry key(s), but a few files in the
Application data area. If the file auth.dat has a different
date than giveaway day (January 16, 2012) that may be why
it don't work now.ueic.cfg also, probably.
Posted 13 years ago # -
I got a reply for my email:
Dear Pluto,
Thanks for your support of Kingsoft Office.
Kingsoft office 2012 for Giveawayoftheday is only available on 16th, January (USA time), and limited to 20000 user activated, else it will become a trial version with 30-day free trial.
If the problem persists, please send us the auth.dat file and we will look into it. You can find this file in :
Win7 OS: C:\Users\testcenter\AppData\Roaming\Kingsoft\office6
Windows XP OS: C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator\Application Data\Kingsoft\office6As Kingsoft Office important customer, we are pleased to provide continuous and effective help and service.
For more information on Kingsoft Office, please access our official website http://www.kingsoftstore.com or like us on facebook and follow us on twitter.Any problem, please feel free to contact us.
Best Regards,
Melissa
Kingsoft Office Corporation Customer Services
I sent in the auth.dat file and am waiting to hear from a reply from them. Hopefully by running the oem.exe program afterwards, I didn't ruin anything. I will post here shortly.
Posted 13 years ago # -
Hi Pluto, that was me re only being able to open one document. Until recently I've always used Office 2003 (since it's release). I updated to Office 2010 last year, but only have it on one computer (not my main computer and it was a single license) and rarely use it. So am still used to the old 2003 format which doesn't have tabs. I didn't notice the tabs when I wrote the above (I tend not to be very observant). The program works absolutely fine now.
Did you run any sort of registry cleaner since installing Kingsoft? If so, that could have been the culprit. If you really wanted to keep the program, as others have suggested above, I would consider doing a restore to a previous date, with the hope that you get full functionality back. :)
Posted 13 years ago # -
Yeah I wasn't paying much attention to who I replied to. But I'm used to the MS Office 2003 UI; that's the only non-free office suite I have. And on the contrary I'm unbelievably observant lol. I think I'll just end up switching back to that one if I need to since it worked really well.
As for running a registry cleaner, the only one I've ever used was CCleaner, though I'm not sure I've run it in the past few months. As for a system restore, I've installed so much software that I'd rather not deal with problems with that I'm not willing to do that. I can just go to Office 2003 if needed.
Anyways Kingsoft replied and told me they forwarded the file to their R&D team. Will reply if they do solve my issue.
Posted 13 years ago # -
That's cool Pluto, I hope it gets resolved. I'm beginning to like the program. :)
Posted 13 years ago # -
Looks like I found out I had a backup of the auth.dat file! I restored it, and now my problem is fixed.
Posted 13 years ago # -
excellent :)
Posted 13 years ago #
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