This was tricky. Microsoft had crippled my previously satisfactory copy of Office 2021 with inadequately-tested updates. Microsoft support is legendary - as in, it's a legend like King Arthur or the Loch Ness Monster and has no basis in reality - so I thought replacing my 2021 copy with Office 2024 for £25 would be a good solution.

I uninstalled Office 2021, installed the downloaded product and launched Word and Outlook - both of which looked identical to my 2021 products - and neither requested a licence key, as the instructions said Word should. So I uninstalled again, and checked that all the old Office files had been removed - they had. I re-installed 2024, then launched Word, as instructed. Again, it looked like the 2021 version. When I went to check the version and details, I found that the File tab did indeed have a request to enter a licence key, carefully hidden! I entered the key - and it announced itself as 2024 LTSC. "GREAT!" I thought.

Then I looked for Outlook on the Start menu, eventually finding it as 'Outlook Classic'. ('Outlook' gives you the cut-down version that's a replacement for the MS Mail client.) It wanted the licence key, but then insisted that I'd tried to instal it too many times - but I'd only just FOUND the beast! I then had to go through the tedious rigmarole of the 'telephone registration', typing TEN 7-DIGIT NUMBERS into boxes on screen then having to enter EIGHT 6-digit numbers into boxes on my phone screen.

BUT IT WORKED! I'm now the proud owner of a copy of Office 2024 - which looks & feels just like the 2021 version. It remains to be seen whether it's any more stable.