Sunday, January 27, 2013

Reinstall iWork 09

I purchased iWork more than 2 years ago. I still have the original box and CD. However, I could not find its serial number. The reason I need SN is that I could not use iWork on my two MacBook Pros. Today I got the issue resolve. Actually, I don't need SN since I have to original box and CD.

Here is the background story. My daughter has used those two MacBook Pros. I think that she may installed iWork trial version from web. The trial version has only 30 day limit. After the limit, it requires SN to activate. Now I take my daughter's old MacBook Pro for my personal use. I gave her another one last year. Since she used both and she used Time Machine to restore her account, both have the same issue: SN for iWork activation.

Today, I spent some time to investigate and I got it resolved. What I need is to remove the iWork from Applications folder first. I have to remove its library folder from /Library/Applicaction Support. There is are two iWorks folders there, one for 08 and one for 09. The 09 folder should be removed.

After cleanup of the iWork, I inserted CD and installed it. There is no requirement for SN. After installation, the iWork works fine. There is option to update iWork when either Numbers or Pages is launched first time. I found this update is not from Apple's software update.

By the way, iWork 09 is good for up to 5 personal computers, according to Apple's information from web. I have not tried it over 5 yet. I doubt if can install it over more than 5. I have another 3 MacBook laptops (one MacBook, two MacBook Air) I sent to my relatives. I am going to visit them in my coming vacation. I will verify if they still have iWork or not. I'll try to install it if they don't have or they have same SN requirement issue.

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