Hi George, Thanks for your reply. I was tempted to just overwrite but as it was an illegal copy I thought it might be more prudent to uninstall the 2002 version first. Fortunately that worked. Regards Judith ----- Original Message ----- From: "George Elting" <justgeo1@comcast.net> To: <computers@rootsweb.com> Sent: Tuesday, April 07, 2009 8:25 AM Subject: Re: [COMPUTERS] Microsoft Office. Uninstall Illegal copybeforeinstalling legal one? > > I can't say for sure about illegal copies, but upgrades always overwrite > older copies. If the new version thinks the previous version is being > upgraded, it should just overwrite it. I've used MS Office since version > 4. > > -----Original Message----- > From: computers-bounces@rootsweb.com > [mailto:computers-bounces@rootsweb.com] > On Behalf Of Judith > Sent: Monday, April 06, 2009 7:18 AM > To: computers@rootsweb.com > Subject: [COMPUTERS] Microsoft Office. Uninstall Illegal copy > beforeinstalling legal one? > > Hi Listers, > > I purchased a 2nd hand laptop recently which had what I thought was a > legal > copy of Microsoft Office XP Pro 2002 [no disk]. > Microsoft validation tool says it's not legal. I am going to buy a legal > copy of Microsoft Office Home and Student 2007, but do I need to delete > the > illegal Office XP Pro 2002 first or will it install over the top? > > Regards > Judith > > > >