Why Is Openoffice Forcing Me To Register After 4 Yrs?

It won't even let me open my frickin files until I do. i didn't do any updates with it. I checked the control panel. Should I just uninstall l & reinstall???
Windows 8.1

 

I suggest you install LibreOffice.
It's more up to date and fully supports the newer Microsoft Office formats.
Don't worry, both office suites are based on the original OpenOffice.org

http://www.majorgeeks.com/files/details/libreoffice_productivity_suite.html

https://www.libreoffice.org/

 

I actually did check out libreoffice last night after I had a fit about OO. I might just do that. Except I have a feeling it's this POS HP computer doing it & not OO at all. What else is gonna go wrong?? It eats my ipods, won't burn photo discs using the wizard, refuses to work with any printer, tells me every time it's turned on that I have files waiting to be burned but there aren't any, DVD flick just stopped working one day for no apparent reason even with an uninstall reinstall, won't turn on without a password even though it's set to bypass that, & it makes my music sound like shit but youtube sounds great......I miss my Gateway If I could afford to throw it off the roof, I would.

 

OK. Well I thought if I never clicked on the update they'd leave me alone!!
Do I need to do the custom install on Libreoffice? It's not going to put stuff I don't want on my harddrive? That's what freeware is, correct? Just want to make sure.

 

Here are the installation instructions for Windows.
https://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/install-howto/windows/
If you need additional languages and dictionaries, use the Custom install option.

 

I was already installing it, but I stopped when I got to that part because I was worried about it installing extra things that have nothing to do with libreoffice. But I guess it's OK.

 

I installed libreoffice so it's all good. Screw OO! Thanks to all who replied.