Microsoft Word on 2010 laptop?

Don't laptops come with 'Word' on anymore? When I bought my laptop in 2010 you had the option of buying 'Microsoft Word' for Windows 7 and it cost £79.99 for the year and I didn't do that.

In older days the desktop computers used to come with 'Word' already on it, dosen't this apply anymore to desktops, laptops and netbooks?

So if I want to add 'word' to my laptop it will cost £79.99 for a year, that is so expensive . Can anyone advise a cheaper way of having it. I only want to write letters so I can print them out and send to friends, I don't need an office suite that includes excel and business stuff. I'm not to happy about downloading free ones as they may contain viruses and my not be legit (if you know what I mean).

Any advice gratefully received thanks

Probably not if there was an option to buy. Most seem to have wordpad which you can use for letter writing.

Open Office is free & I've not heard any complaints about it
http://www.openoffice.org/
Have a look at it

As Taffsmum says there are less system heavy alternatives to Microsoft Office. Last I checked it was around 300 to get it put on a computer. Some business class ones come with it preloaded but you can bet you are paying in the price of the computer.

If you are a student you can use Microsoft Office Student Pack. You have to get a signature from your place of learning. That's only about 60 quid.

Not many people need the whole gubbins of the complete Office Suite for home use.

I took my netbook to the 'man on the market' and he put it on for me, cost me £20

Thanks for your replies, I will have a good read of the posts and get back to you all on this thread. Thanks

I've just realised I've got a word starter on my laptop so I'll be using that.

I'm not very technical minded. Thanks again

I will pretend I didn't see that lol! You little PIRATE you!

We spent over £200 for a new laptop for my daughter and it didn't come with office!! Luckily my hubby got us office ( sorry Tangutica )I wouldn't pay the small fortune for it, my son uses Linus I think it's callers and that's free to download off the net and its legal before anyone asks

I spent almost £800 on mine and it didn't come with Office! As I said you usually only get it as part of a business bundle suite. Same as some are marketed with photo editing stuff in mind or gaming or whatever.

As the full Office costs more than your laptop did you can see why they don't pre install it!

If you've not paid for it - watch what you do re updates.

Generally you cannot do updates on the Microsoft Office pirated copy. If you do, Microsoft will detect it and will shut it down! You can still do normal updates for your windows but only be careful of what type of updates you allow to install. I wouldn't set it to 'auto update' for instance.

To be honest - if I didn't pay for the pukka thing I would go for Open Office - more than most people need or the cheaper student pack if you've got a friendly student!