Software

Windows Home Single Language and the key that adds a second language:

many laptops sold in Latin America ship with this edition, which shows one display language and refuses to add another from the settings. Someone who bought a Spanish machine and works in English, or brought one back from the United States and wants it in Spanish, is better served by a full Home or Pro key than by a workaround, and that is one of the few reasons a laptop owner buys Windows on its own. Look under Settings, System, About for the edition, and when you browse laptops, favour listings that state it. Pro adds BitLocker encryption and remote desktop to what Home does. A boxed retail key can follow you to your next computer; the OEM key an assembler puts on a tower from desktops stays with that tower.

Office as a one-time purchase or Microsoft 365 by the year:

the one-time Office Home gives you Word, Excel and PowerPoint on one computer and never asks for a renewal, but it gets no new features and leaves out Outlook, which comes with Home and Business. Microsoft 365 is a subscription: the same apps kept up to date on several devices, with cloud storage, and a Family plan the household can share. Students should try their school email first; the UCR account covers Microsoft 365, and Microsoft gives many schools a free web-only Office. A one-time Office Home licence costs around ₡90,000, while Microsoft 365 Personal runs around ₡55,000 a year and Family around ₡65,000 a year for up to six people. For one person who writes documents and keeps them on the computer, the one-time licence costs less than two years of subscription. Second-hand, a key card that was given as a present and never opened is worth close to its shelf price, because nothing on it has aged. Once redeemed, the code lives in somebody’s Microsoft account and is worth nothing to anyone else.

Antivirus boxes with a clock on them:

an ESET, Kaspersky, Norton or Bitdefender licence covers a fixed number of devices for a fixed term, and the term starts at activation, not on the day the box was bought. A sealed box is a full licence. An activated one carries only the months left, and it usually sits in the seller’s account on the maker’s site, so ask whether it can be released to you before paying anything for the remainder.

A sealed key card against an activation done by remote access:

a card with its scratch-off strip intact, in a sleeve that has not been slit, is the one licence you can judge by looking at it. Be wary of the seller who offers to connect to your computer and activate Windows or Office for you instead of handing over a key. That is an activator tool, not a licence: Microsoft’s updates have been switching those off, and the tool itself is a common way for malware to get in. A “lifetime” Photoshop, Illustrator or AutoCAD on a recent version is not genuine either, because Adobe and Autodesk sell those by subscription only; Photoshop Elements is the Adobe program still bought outright. Older boxes such as Creative Suite 6 are real perpetual licences, but they get no updates and will not install on a recent Mac.

Passing on a licence you never redeemed:

copy the product, edition and language exactly as printed on the box, such as Windows Pro on USB in Spanish or Office Home and Business, and for antivirus the number of devices and the term. Photograph the front, the back and the untouched strip. If an antivirus has been activated, open the maker’s account page at the meeting so the buyer sees the days left and watches you release it. A student in San Pedro who bought an Office card before finding out the UCR already covered them is a typical seller, and a buyer paying close to shelf price for a sealed card will ask where it was bought, so keep the receipt with it.