Microsoft Office 2010 software is available as a free upgrade to all users who have purchased a copy of Office 2007 on or after March 5, 2010.

However, if you are feeling a bit unlucky because you got yourself a copy of Office 2007 just days before the upgrade offer was announced and are therefore ineligible for the free upgrade, here’s something that you should try.

The Microsoft web store has a refund policy of 30 calendar days for all downloadable software. If you have bought the software in a box, it is also eligible for return within 30 days of the purchase date as long as you have the original packaging, including installer media and the product key.

So here’s the deal. Return the copy of Microsoft Office 2007 to the store and buy it again from the same store. This time however you’ll automatically become eligible for a free upgrade to Office 2010 when it comes out in June.

All software retailers have different return policies but ff you have bought Office 2007 from Amazon in the last few days, you are covered too as they also have a 30 day return policy for software - the condition is that you should return the box “in its original condition.”

This should work not just for Office 2007 but all the other Office programs including Visio, Microsoft Project, etc.

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