Word 365 Online vs Desktop vs Word 2019

In the free Office "Online"

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The major feature that online cannot handle is VBA / Macros.

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(Most) 365 licenses give you access to the full "desktop" installation. That is access to all features. Actually 365 includes "new features" that are added monthly that are not in the one-time payment Office 2019 bundles.  There are a few 365 licenses that are Online only.

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https://products.office.com/en-ca/office-online/documents-spreadsheets-presentations-office-online?rtc=1

This page is one way of accessing Office online. Just sign in, then click on the "Get started for free" button to take to a home page with buttons for all of the Office Online applications you have access to.

https://support.office.com/en-us/article/What-s-the-difference-between-Office-365-and-Office-2016-ed447ebf-6060-46f9-9e90-a239bd27eb96

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Windows 10 and Office 365/2019 applications are setup by default to save to OneDrive.  But you can change that option in the Office applications.

In your Office applications you can tell them to default saving to your local computer:

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Here are some articles about driving a figurative stake through the heart of OneDrive in Windows.

https://www.digitalcitizen.life/how-uninstall-hide-onedrive-windows 

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https://support.office.com/en-US/article/Turn-off-or-uninstall-OneDrive-f32a17ce-3336-40fe-9c38-6efb09f944b0

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https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/msoffice/forum/msoffice_drive-mso_winother/how-to-remove-personal-onedrive-from-the-save-as/778c3c50-fc60-4e24-b964-340ae20d048d?page=3&msgId=2cda5ec0-2598-46ee-96d9-9e68926e3236

Open regedit

Goto HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\16.0\Common\SignIn

Add DWORD: SignInOptions

Value: 3

Restart Computer.

I have tested this on my computer with Office 2016 and now it looks like this:

This option blocks signing in to Office 365

http://blah.winsmarts.com/2013-5-Registry_keys_to_administer_Office_365_in_your_Organization.aspx

Posted on 5/4/2013 @ 12:46 PM in #SharePoint by Sahil Malik | Feedback | 9892 views

If a user in your organization attempts to access an Office 365 resource, from their office client, you as an administrator have a lot of control on the user experience. This is tweaked mostly using certain registry keys as follows,

1.  HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\15.0\Common\SignIn\SignInOptions  allows you to tweak what ID types to offer the user at logon,

2. HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\15.0\Common\Internet\UseOnlineContent .. to prevent a user from connecting Office 2013 files that reside on the internet.

3. HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\15.0\Common\Identity\Identities .. is where it stores saved Office profile and credentials.

When a user logs into an Office app by using either their Microsoft account ID or their organization ID, a matching Office profile and credentials for that identity are created in the registry. Even though the log in page gives the user the option of removing that identity (under the “Not user name?” question). removing the identity still leaves that corresponding Office profile and credentials in cache for a while. This may be an issue if you want to remove the identity immediately (say someone got fired etc.). To do so, you can browse to that user’s Office profile in the registry, and delete it.

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You should check with your upcoming University to see if you will be getting a "free" Office 365 Education license as part of your tuition. And which one it is. There is one 365 Education that is online only and the other includes desktop applications.

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Until you find out you may want to use the monthly 365 subscription option.

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Check with your friends and family to see if anyone has a "Share" on (Office) 365 Family that they can give you.  365 Family allows the renter to "share" with up to 5 other people

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Note: 365 Education is based on the business version of Office. It uses fundamentally different underlying technology for at least 2 core applications, "Outlook"(Exchange) and OneDrive.

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This article covers many of the ways you can get Office 365

The article got too long for the forum, so I moved it to a Word document and uploaded it to OneDrive.  You can view or download it from here:

https://1drv.ms/w/s!Am8lVyUzjKfpoGos7ovI66isqzKN?e=kqK1Qj

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Short form, you have several basic options:

.  #1 Office Online, free, but not fully functional

.  #2 Office 365 Family, "free", if you can get a "share" from someone who has paid, on up to 5 computers

.  #3 Office 2019 Home and Student, buy with 1-time payment, 1 computer

.  #4 Office 365 Personal, rent / pay-forever US$70/year, 1 user, up to 5 computers

.  #5 Office 365 Family, rent / pay for-ever US$100/year, up to 6 users, each on up to 5 computers

.  #6 Non-MS alternatives to Office, not exactly identical, but free or cheap

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Unfortunately, "buying" Office has become a big decision tree.

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You can take the easy way out and rent Office 365 forever from MS, at full retail price, (whether you really NEED the "extra" features you are paying for) or you can take some time to investigate all of the options to find the best deal for you.

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If you meet the right conditions, you really can get Office for FREE or much cheaper than everyone else who is paying the full retail price.

Check out the wiki I go into more detail outlining these options:

You will have to decide for yourself. You can to trade off long term cost and features If your needs are very simple, you won’t need to spend much or work with one of the free options. But if you are a more “advanced” user, using multiple Office applications and sharing documents/files with others you will have to pay for one of the “Microsoft” (Office) 365 / Office 2019 bundles.