Technique Microsystems Ltd.

WARNING: Office Activation May Cause Unintentional Data Loss!

I recently moved my hard drive from one system to another identically configured system and was forced to re-activate several software packages. No big deal really, since Microsoft has made their activation process quite easy.

Today I started working on a new project plan and I had to activate Project 2010 because it was the first time I'd used it since the migration. The activation was quick and easy as usual. After almost an hour of work I closed Project expecting to be prompted to save my work. Instead, Project simply exited and I was left at my desktop wondering where my work had gone. Very frustrating to say the least!

It turns out that MS disables the save feature if you have gone beyond the trial period and you must activate to re-enble it. Fair enough. But what isn't clear is that you must close and re-open Office products after activation to re-enable the save features.

Microsoft, if you're reading this, please change the behavior so that users are warned before exiting, or prevent them from creating any significant work in the first place!

Arrgh...