How can I activate Office 2010

Yes, MS "Officially" does not support 2010. But you may still be able to re-install and activate it.

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"Automated" Phone activation still does work, but yes, MS no longer provides live, "service" rep support for 2010. That error message is a lie to "encourage" you to spend more money on 365... But you may not have to.

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Farther down I've pasted some instructions on how to get around the "phone activation not supported message".  Try doing the "online"/"automated" part of phone activation after you get the right phone number.

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If that still doesn't work, you do have some options.

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• Go to the MS Store. The canadian store has 2019 Home and Student for $50 off retail price, yours may have same offer, but it ends today
• If your needs are simple, you can try using the free "Office Online".  These are web versions of the Office applications.
• talk to your family (and friends) to see if anyone has 365 Family with an unused "share" (they have 5) they can give you
• create your own "family" to share 365 Family, 6 people splitting the cost works out to $17 each per year, more affordable
• You can buy one-time payment Office 2019 Home and Student for about US$150.
• There are free non-MS "Office" bundles you can use. They are similar to the Office applications, but not identical. If you can adapt to the differences, they are a workable alternative

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, use on up to 5 computers

.  #3 Office 2019 Home and Student, buy with US$150 1-time payment, use on 1 computer

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

.  #5 Office 365 Family, rent / pay for-ever US$100/year, up to 6 users, each can use on up to 5 computers, works out to as low as $17 each per year

.  #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:

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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.

2020 07 28- Microsoft 365 is big and getting bigger fast

https://www.zdnet.com/article/microsoft-365-is-big-and-getting-bigger-fast/

Microsoft 365 contributed $20 billion in billed revenues to Microsoft's FY'20 total, sources say. And that number, fueled by accelerating E5 SKU growth, is only likely to grow faster.

2020 02 07- CompuClever Free File Viewers (MS Store App)

I just came across this free MS Store app. As well as viewing many file formats, it can edit some, specifically Office application files.

<snip>

Main Features

Free File Viewers is a totally free application made up of an image viewer, an office editor, a text editor, an audio player, a video player, an unzipper, an eBook reader and a set of useful tools.

Open over 480 file formats
Edit, save, convert, and print files
Batch convert images at lightning speed
Open, edit, and convert camera raw files
Extract files from compressed archives
And a lot more.

</snip>

I just tried it and you can use it to edit Office files, plus I don’t know which other file formats. It uses a 2003 menu style user interface.

If you have a product key and an installation disc, you should be able to reinstall Office 2010.

If phone activation fails, see https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/-telephone-activation-is-no-longer-supported-for-your-product-error-when-activating-office-9b016cd2-0811-4cb3-b896-5a6a13177713.

Thank you very much.  

Happy new year. 

Thank you very much for such a detailed reply.

Do you know if I can BUY or Rent Outlook ONLY?  It is the only application that I really. Since I have a large PST file I can not convert to outlook on the web or Outlook.com.   

A happy new year to you and yours.  And yes please stay COVID safe a vaccine is coming soon. 

Yes, in theory you can buy standalone Office applications, for example Word:

https://www.microsoftstore.com/store/msca/en_CA/pdp/Word-2016-Non-Commercial/productID.323921800  “Non-Commercial” Word

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The problem is that MS keeps hiding one-time payment Office and standalone apps because they REALLY want everyone on the 365 cash cow.

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The only one place I've found it consistently is the Bermuda version of the MS store

https://www.microsoft.com/en-bm/store/collections/officeapps

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Outlook US$140. I think that will work in North America.

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If you ever think you will need any of the other Office programs, you could get onetime payment Office 2019 Home and Business for about US$240.

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Have you looked at alternatives to Outlook that may be free or cheaper:

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https://www.ionos.ca/digitalguide/e-mail/technical-matters/free-alternatives-to-microsoft-outlook/

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https://www.getmailbird.com/mailbird-best-alternative-to-outlook/