Microsoft may be pushing Office users to its $99 / year subscription model, but it does still offer the option to buy a single $139 license of its productivity suite. That license was originally limited to a single machine, though, which meant that even if your computer breaks or you upgrade to a new one, you'd be forced to buy a new license. (The Office subscription supports up to five devices.) But after a fair amount of unhappy "customer feedback" on a blog post explaining the original terms, Microsoft announced today that it's altering the retail license terms of to allow users to transfer Office to another PC. It can only be transferred once every 90 days unless your computer is still under warranty, and can still only be active on one machine at a time — but at least now, the price of your new or upgraded laptop won't include a whole new Office 2013 license as well.
Office 2013 now transferable to new PCs every 90 days after uproar over license restrictions
is a senior correspondent and author of Notepad, who has been covering all things Microsoft, PC, and tech for over 20 years.
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