Star Office 8 Google Free Version installation

[peterantonrev]

Hi All,

I own Star Office 7 and am happy with it, but found out that Google was offering Ver. 8 for free so I downloaded it and now have it installed and it seems to be working OK. However, I have a number of questions regarding this installation, but one in particular:

The download (146Mb) took days because of my dialup connection and I am wondering if I ever have to reinstall for some reason if the install files are stored somewhere on my hard drive. I suppose since it's free that it's a virtual install and I'd have to download it again. Of course, I could always install my copy of Ver. 7 if I had to, but thought I'd ask anyway.

Peter A.

[TerryE]

Unlike OpenOffice.org, Star Office is a commercial product marketed by Sun, albeit on the same code base. The fact that Google offer StarOffice as a free download is a decision by Google following some private commercial agreement between Google and Sun. You need to read the detailed T&Cs published by Google in this regard.

In terms of downloading: if you are on a Dial-up then you'd be well advised (i) to avoid doing the download where possible (e.g. by getting the media via a friend who has broadband, or from a DVD attached to a reputable mag), and where you do need to do the download, always use a a download manager which can recover from line drop and always do a Save As and keep a copy, say on a DVD-RW. The few cents that this costs is small compared to the cost of redownload if you need to do that.

[Hagar Delest]

See where your download manager or browser has put the installation file and keep it in a safe place. If you don't know where it is, try to download it again until the dialog ask you the destination folder, the file should be in that folder.

Thanks to add '[Solved]' in your first post title (edit button) if your issue has been fixed.

[peterantonrev]

I forgot to mention that the download is handled by the Google Updater software. Once the package is downloaded, I think the installation code is deleted. At any rate, I haven't found any 147Mb file or temp directory nor is there any reference to the package in the Updater window since the download has been installed. This is similar to a streaming Flash movie download. I tried once to find out where the code was kept and found it, but the file is protected as long as the browser window is open. Once you close the browser window, the file is deleted.

I see understand it, this as the relatively new practice of keeping the rights to media and software safe on the server and still allowing them to be used by the end user, and also allowing for software revisions and updates without having to send fresh code to everyone. Didn't Bill Gates make the prediction once that that would be the future trend? Has that happened? Or did consumer pressure opt for the control offered by local installations?

Peter A.

See where your download manager or browser has put the installation file and keep it in a safe place. If you don't know where it is, try to download it again until the dialog ask you the destination folder, the file should be in that folder.

Thanks to add '[Solved]' in your first post title (edit button) if your issue has been fixed.

[DrewJensen]

I have the same StarOffice 8 from Google installed. I don't know where the updater put the install files either. It looked to me when it did the install that the same basic steps happened as with OpenOffice.org but automated - I think that possible they raw install files where opened over the net.

One word of caution to you - The staroffice 8 application has a 'Check for updates' function. If you use this and it tells you that an update is available DO NOT accept the update. What happens is it takes you to the SUN website and starts to install the commercial version of the application - when it is done - your installation will be hosed - dead. It has been reported but to date, as far as I know, SUN has done absolutely nothing about this.

You must update your version only via the Google Updater - the release from Google ran about 5 weeks behind the SUN release of the StarOffice 8 update last time.

Otherwise it has been running like a charm - I tend to use OpenOffice.org more the StarOffice, for lots of reasons. But StarOffice 8 sure looks better under Windows then OpenOffice.org does.