Does anyone know if there's some form of hack to get Office 2013 working on Windows XP?  Officially it only works on Windows 7 or 8.

I ask because my work place recently gave out all of its old Windows XP PCs to staff and they were then all told they could purchase Office though Microsoft's Home Use Program.  That was great until Microsoft released Office 2013, as our software assurance kicked in and the Home Use Program software changed from 2010 to 2013.  Now people have bought it and can't use it on the PCs they were given.

Microsoft doesn't let you switch back to 2010 on the Home Use program, or let you downgrade the product after purchase either.  The people that got in early are fine with their Office 2010, but the others are now all pretty screwed.  I don't have any way of legally upgrading the PCs to Windows 7 either, as they'd have to be onsite for my licences.

I think they'd be well in their rights to jim a 2010 (which I can confirm, does run on XP).

Really don't get why MS does stuff like this. I understand that they want people off XP and onto W7/W8 but for many people, especially in small/medium businesses, the idea of updating a familiar, perfectly functional OS just for the sake of an updated office suite that they probably don't even really need in most cases is... ridiculous. It's such a nasty, cynical move.

40% of desktop users are still using XP for a reason. In a sane world, a company would be fucking delighted that their product was still so popular after 10 years.

It's a shame LibreOffice is a bit shoddy and that there's no real Exchange alternative otherwise Linux would have a really good argument for enterprise desktop use, now.

There aren't enough IT-savvy people to be able to do that though, and I'm not starting my own jimlad Office 2010 distribution.

I get why Microsoft have made Office 2013 only compatible with Windows 7 and 8.  It's the fact I can't change the Home Use Program to sell anything other than Office 2013 now, and they gave us absolutely no notice that it was going to change.  People are now angry at us because we've told them to go and buy something that doesn't work.

I can understand them dropping XP support, but Vista seems a bit weird. Less than 3 1/2 years ago it was MS's primary OS, and it shares a huge amount architecturally with Windows 7.