Microsoft Office : Mac 2011 Home and Student. (1 user, 1 Mac)

First, the bad news. If you are running macOS 10.15 (Catalina) or later on your 2019 iMac Office 2011 will not run on it. Office 2011 is no longer supported by Microsoft on newer Macs.

You have three options:

1. Subscribe to Microsoft 365
2. Purchase single seat license
3. Consider using a replacement for Office (LibreOffice, the excellent and free Office workalike) and others.

This is often the reason that users don't e-cycle an older computer. They may have peripherals that are no longer supported and/or programs that won't run on the newer computer. While not as convenient from a practical standpoint in terms of the space occupied, it's less expensive than a subscription to Office 365.

Office 2011 is not only ancient (in computer years), but it's completely unsupported by Microsoft.

If you're running Catalina or newer, it will never run as 2011 is 32 bit software, and Catalina or newer requires all software to be 64 bit. That, and there is no way to activate a new install of Office 2011 as MS shut down the activation server almost two years ago.

While true there’s also a big downside. Older hardware and software opens the user up to unpatched security flaws and hackers. On the other hand there are forums here for people still using forty year old Macs running System 7.

Another strange phenomenon is that a user spends a significant amount of money buying new Mac, finds out some older software or peripheral no longer works, but is not willing to update that software or peripheral. Volunteers here on these forums are constantly dealing with users trying to get their 10+ year old printers/scanners to work with the current macOS. These printers have been discontinued by the manufacturer, are no longer supported by the manufacturer, no drivers are available from the manufacturer, yet users somehow think Apple is responsible for keeping those old peripherals working.

Kind of a touchy subject with me if you haven’t guessed.