I got an Acer Aspire One mini laptop for christmas, and it has Microsoft XP Home Edition loaded onto it BUT...?

No, you don't. (And the product key on the bottomof the laptop is only for the operating system.) But for Microsoft Office (Word, Excel, Powerpoint...), you probably have a free trial copy that's good for 25 uses (of all Office programs combined) or 60 days. You can use the trial copy by clicking the Continue button on the registration screen without putting anything in the product key boxes.

But be warned: When the trial copy expires -- with little or no warning -- you'll be able to read and print your documents, but not much more. At that time, here are some of your options for paying less than full price for Microsoft Office 2007:

First, if you're a student, you may qualify for the Ultimate Steal edition of Office at a pretty good price ($59.95):

http://www.microsoft.com/student/discoun%E2%80%A6

Second, if you’re interested in buying just Word, check out this URL, especially the second group of listings.

http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/produc%E2%80%A6

Note that the higher of the two prices quoted is for a full version of that program and the lower, for upgrades from existing software. Read the list of upgrade-qualifying software carefully: MS Works is often one, and may have come on your machine.

Finally, if you have files that are locked up in the new Word 2007 file format (.docx), here’s a possibility for salvaging them. Microsoft offers a free Compatibility pack that allows earlier versions of Word (and Microsoft Works) to read and write Word 2007 files. If you have access to an earlier version, this can at least give you back your documents. Some new features of Word 2007 will be lost or converted to straight text in the conversion to the earlier version.

Good luck.

Most likely it has a TRIAL version of Microsoft office, you have to buy it to get the product key.

with all your documentation and sofware that came with the laptop you should have a cd with the product key on the package, if not then I would uninstall it from control panel\add remove programs. Then go to http://www.openoffice.org/ this works great and is compatible with all office programs and its FREE. Best thing since peanut butter and jelly.

Open office is the way forward. It is opensource (free) and allows you to load and save almost any file type (not MS Works though for some reason) If you require to save as a word file then when you save your file, select save As and change the filetype to "word .Doc".

Most laptops come with Trial version office 2007.

If you are student you buy office 2007 for £38.95 or $59.95:

Download and Buy:

http://www.microsoft.com/student/discounts/theulti...

Or use Open Office - free alternative-

http://www.openoffice.org/

The cd's are probably the restore disks