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Office 365 "The fine print" popup message - is it legitimate?

Copper Contributor

Greetings,

 

I have been happily using Office 365 (mostly Word) for many years, and I have never had any problems with any of the products. This morning when I loaded Word I was confronted by a pop-up message called "The fine print" asking me to accept terms of use in order to continue. I have been using Word for several years on this computer and I have never seen anything like this, I just want to confirm that this pop-up message is in fact legitimate and not some form of spyware or adware impersonating Microsoft.

 

Any assistance would be greatly appreciated,

Glenn

 

Here is a screenshot of the pop-up:MSWord-TheFinePrintv2.png

122 Replies
Thanks Eric. We all appreciated the quick response!

Hi Wim and all

 

There may be a registry issue with your customers computer where they don't have the permissions to make it stick. Maybe try this link and see if it helps?

 

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/884202/you-must-accept-the-office-end-user-license-agreemen...

 

In terms of the pop up, when you install office (and other products) they do ask you to accept the terms of use or the licensing agreement to use the software (e.g. to indemnify them in case of damage, etc). We all accept the conditions and most people don't read them.

 

From the look of the image and from what you are all experiencing, it appears that Microsoft may have made some changes to the licence agreement where they need you to accept the new terms.

 

If you want to use the software, you will have to accept the agreement and the problem should go away.

 

Just my thoughts! Best of luck friends.

 

Cheers

Damien

Glenn and folks troubled with Office 365,

 

I am very disappointed with Office 365 and will be looking for alternatives and compensation.

Before I leave I did further investigating and ended up reinstalling Office 365, a product I already paid for. The steps I took under Windows 10 were as follows....(please backup your computer and track down your account/password info before trying the following).

1. Open "Apps & Features".  Easiest way is to find this is type "Apps" in the search box next to the Windows start button/start menu

2. Scroll down to find "Microsoft Office 365" in the right hand side of Apps & Features and click it. This should open up a couple buttons (modify & uninstall). Click the "modify" button.

3. After clicking the modify button you should be presented with options on how to repair Office.

Sadly the quick repair option didn't work so I selected "Online Repair" then clicked the "Repair" button.

Best of luck.

To further clarify, when I repaired Office 365 I had one additional step to "activate" it by simply opening an Office application and activating it with an email and password for the account. The good news was when I reinstalled Office 365 and opened Outlook I did not loose any emails. This sure wasted a lot of time, business, and sanity though.

Hope Microsoft gets this under control soon.

I can understand that Microsoft Office 365 is "Software as a Service" so they can change the licensing agreement from time to time, but I have never subscribed to that.  We have always bought our Office software with the understanding that we own it.  It costs more upfront, but we own it and don't have to "renew our lease" every year.  We are still using Office 2010 on some of our machines and it works fine.  

 

After we paid more to buy our Office Suites, it seems unfair for Microsoft to foist new licensing agreements on us and hold our already paid for software hostage until we accept their new terms.

What I'm not understanding is why a 'so-called' legitimate company is holding subscribers hostage unless they accept "the fine print"!!!! The product was working fine and now I cannot use it unless I accept. That's the same as me coming to your house and telling you how and when to clean it.

If you're going to hold subscribers hostage unless they accept your terms, you owe us full reimbursement for subscribing. I don't think anyone who posted their disgust with this 'accept our bloated update' expected to NOT BE ABLE TO USE A PRODUCT THAT THEY PAID TO HAVE ACCESS TO FOR A YEAR! As it currently stands I am unable to work at home. Why not give us an option to either accept or not....We paid for it!

Hi James
 
I get where you are coming from and the feelings around it. Some other products do that which makes me feel similar to you! 
 
My suggestion would be to go with Office 2016 rather than the Office 365 cloud version as you did with Office 2010. That would mean the software is yours for as long as you want to use (or until you upgrade) it whereas Office 365 will evolve over time giving you the feature updates as part of your subscription.
 
If anyone is interested in the difference, some good articles are floating around on Office 2016 vs Office 365 pros and cons:
 
 
Hope that helps!
 
Cheers & best wishes
Damien
I did NOT update nor upgrade Office 2016. Why is microsoft forcing this on paying customers? Besides, I'm quite happy with the end results from all of my printers. That being said, I don't need it. Microsoft, I am not impressed. Your tactics take the option of 'choice' away from EU's

@ annachu

There's no \/ in the top right corner of the window. There's 2 options 'X' to close or "Accept and start" the MS app I'm attempting to launch

Today would really be a very nice option for a fix to be applied. MS, stop holding your customers hostage!!!!

Hi Helene 

 

If you are on Office 365, I would equate it more to you renting a house and your landlord adjusting the terms of your rental per your rental contact.

 

The Microsoft End User Licensing Agreement (EULA) would specify clearly the right to do updates to their service as needed where users must accept the EULA to continue to use the Office 365 subscription. Of course no one ever reads the EULA and if you want to see some hilarious examples of EULA, take a look here: https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/10-ridiculous-eula-clauses-agreed/.

 

When you stop using Office 365, your data will eventually be deleted and the apps you use will become read only (not sure if they cease to work after a while or not as it's never happened to me).

 

Per the post I made just after yours, if you shift to Office 2016 you will have control over your software and will only receive security updates (and possibly service packs with new features) to maintain your product.

 

This sort of thing happening is common and will continue as more software shifts to Software as a Service (SaaS). Adobe does the same thing as an example.

 

Hope it all goes well and best wishes to you!

 

Cheers

Damien

 

P.S. Having just seen your other post in relation to something I said earlier. If you are using Office 2016, you may have had auto update give you an update that could have triggered the EULA prompt. It's hard to tell as I don't use Office 2016 but I wouldn't discount the option.

 

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4340798/july-2018-updates-for-microsoft-office

Thanks Damien....I understand that MS has the rights to change/update EULA. However, we all know that not every user applies every win update, etc. My major concern is that as a subscriber, I have the same right, to update or not. Also, I should (I say this loosely), have the right to use the product 'as is' and if it fails to perform as intended it's on me.

Most importantly, my major concern is that no one seems to know whether or not this is legit. Also, not getting any response from MS doesn't  alleviate my concerns either. This whole situation is eerily similar to what happens with ransom ware and I really, don't want to blow up my unit on a lark.

I agree with you about Microsoft responding to help clarify the situation. I've sent a private message to @Eric Starker suggesting the samething a short time ago.

 

Hopefully this will get cleared up from the source!

 

Cheers

Damien

Thanks, I really appreciate it. I've got work to do and deadlines to meet :)

Our team is aware of this thread and have reached out for further response.

 

Unfortunately, I'm not a subject matter expert on this topic myself, but please be patient while we reach out. Thank you. 

Damien, 

 

I don't think you are following me.  I DID opt to buy Microsoft Office 2016 instead of Office 365 for exactly this reason!  I paid extra so that I would not be subject to the changing licensing.  I paid full price to own this office suite and now am being denied access to it.  

 

The worst part is the doctor in our office who uses outlook to manage email.  She has now lost access to all her correspondence!  One colleague in Japan went ahead and hit accept and was aghast when his computer began downloading something.

 

I imagine that tomorrow, there will be widespread outrage.  

 

Hi James

Sounds nasty but Eric Starker is on the case so I'm looking forward to hearing the details as we all are!

When you say the Doctor has lost all correspondence (not ideal), is that because she didn't hit Accept? Are the correspondences still in webmail?

Hope she gets back online soon. Being disconnected from things in todays world is very uncomfortable!

Cheers
Damien
Unable to use any of our Microsoft Office programs due to the fine print popup message. On the phone for an hour with tech support and unable to remote access in. Everytime we tried support.microsoft.com/help there were no I accept or I don't accept buttons and then the screen would change to An error occured.



Work from home and need this fixed ASAP ! Windows Professional 7 , can't upgrade to 10 as several of the programs used for home and work will not run on it.



Hope the fix occurs quickly

Thanks Damien,

I clicked "accept" with no adverse results.