Two months ago I bought a laptop with Windows 7. It came with a 2 months demo version of MS Office. Now that period has expired, and I would like to disinstall Office and install Open Office instead.
But of course, Office comes without a disinstall option ( 
), and in the ‘programs’ control panel I see multiple Office products (just to complicate things).
Has anyone tried to disinstall Office from Windows 7? What’s the correct way to do it?
Because Microsoft knows you’ll love all their products and don’t want you to remove them. 
Maybe it’s because you didn’t get the full version and only a trial and since they make the OS they probably thought that it was more logical to use that method.
Just a note that Open Office is NOT 100% compatible with Word.
It’s very frustrating when I hire someone who doesn’t have Word. I don’t like MS products anymore than you do, but after years of people telling me they used Word & not Word Perfect, I finally had to switch (that was around 5 years ago). Business & time was more important than my distaste for MS.
The one thing I love about the program is their Track Changes feature. If you pass documents back & forth between 2 or more people to edit, I highly recommend you learn how to use this feature. I can even send you our instruction doc if you are interested.
I know Google Docs sort of has that feature (I think), but it isn’t anywhere near like the Word feature.
Anyway back to why I posted…
When people use OO, so far I’ve had problems with:
Track Changes. Either they can’t see my changes or I can’t see theirs, or they can’t see the comment bubbles, etc. This causes major problems.
The other week I had a problem with someone I sent our company invoice to which was created in Excel. He filled it out, sent it back to me & the entire thing was unreadable. All the graphics, columns, etc. were gone.
This is very frustrating b/c we as a company have to accommodate everyone who refuses to get a copy (I don’t care how you get it) of Word.
I don’t care how techie a person’s position is, Word is used all the time. Like right now I’m writing up all the features he needs to see to program an application for us & I know he’s going to have questions & he’s going to want to make notes & therefore I’m going to tell him he has to use Track Changes b/c that is the fastest most streamlined way to do that.
I will have to put my foot down at some point as it’s not fair to us.
Not saying you have ever had these problems or will, just telling you what I’ve experienced. I wish people used other programs, but facts are facts, MS STILL dominates the market when it comes to their OS & Word & Excel. Everything else of their’s I wouldn’t touch with a 10 ft. pole 
Michelle
You might get a trial version of Microsoft Office 2010 when you buy a new computer. If you don’t want it, you can uninstall it using any uninstaller program you have. If you still cannot uninstall Office 2010 completely, then you might want to give this one a shot. It’s called Remove Office 2007, which is specifically designed to uninstall Office 2007, yet it can also be used to remove Office 2010.
Just hit the “go” button and the application will totally uninstall Microsoft Office 2010. The computer will be restarted instantly after the removal process is complete. Then it will look for other traces of Office 2010 installation to make sure that there is no trace is left behind.
However,since this remover is intended for Office 2007 removal, there are stil certain parts of Office 2010 cannot be removed. The good news is you can remove them with another free utility called Windows Installer Cleanup. Simply select Office 2010 from the list once you run the program and click the “remove” button.
To make sure that everything is cleaned up, use CCleaner to perform a registry scan to fix all the possible problems left by the complete Office 2010 removal process.
Download Remove Office 2007 from here
Download Windows Installer Cleanup from here
Download CCleaner from here
Take care!
Hey Guido
I have uninstalled Office in the past via the Add/Remove Option in the CP - I know there are a few things in there associated with Office, but if you wanna make a clean break from Office you should remove all associations, preferably starting off with say “MS Office Professional Edition 2007” etc. Alternatively I’ve found this link…it might help you out!
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/290301
Goodluck!
Hazel
Office doesn’t come with win7 by default.
It’s probably something the vendor of your laptop added. You best chance would be to google the name of the vendor together with “office”
I haven’t had those problems so far, fortunately. Of course, if I had to use Word for business, then I would get it (and pay for it), and make sure that cost made its way into the clients’ bills
It seems I got rid of it ok, but it keeps baffling me that MS doesn’t ship its own products with a disinstaller. Every slightly decent product has one. And if there’s someone that knows how windows works, it should be them 
Why do I have to go into the control panel, or search on the internet for some obscure explanation about how to remove it manually 
Have you tried un-installing via “Programs & Features” in the Control Panel menu?
Remove individual components and then install open office.
I googled and ended up using ‘Revo Uninstaller’. It’s a bit like the Add/Remove from the control panel, but it should work even better. So far so good
I’m downloading Open Office right now.
Thanks for your suggestions
I’ve been using Revo Uninstaller for quite sometime now. Another good one is Your Uninstaller.