Netbook software

[#1]

My lad has just bought himself a very nice little Acer netbook (with W7 Starter) having saved up his pocket money and used his birthday money. I guess he’s mainly going to use it for Skyping his mates and surfing but also says he’ll use it to help with his homework, he’s just started secondary school.
I’m not too clued up about these little things so was wondering if someone could offer advice. It has Wordpad but I would like to know what other software can be used on a netbook? I have a disc with Office 2007 on it but wasn’t sure: a, if it is ‘appropriate’ software for a netbook and b, if I can use the disc again having used it for the desktop. What sort of ‘Office’ type software is available?
Rob

[#2]

Is the MS Office disc one that was bought or one that came with a computer? Typically software coming with a computer is only licensed for use with that computer. (an OEM licence)
If the Office software was bought was it a single user licence? If so then it can only be installed on one computer at a time. There nothing to stop you uninstalling it from one computer and then reinstalling it on another.
I don't know what works on a netbook.  I suppose it depends on the hardware specification of the netbook. Have a look at  OpenOffice or its offshoot LibreOffice. Both of these are free.

[#3]

I am typing this on an Asus Win 7 Starter netbook
I am using Open Office suite
I have Autoroute working OK
Fire Fox 7.01
Thunderbird 7.01
AVG
Zone alarm
Disc C is 80G
Disc D is 54G
a few old programs are dificult to run, so I resort  to SWMBO's netbook with XP
I dumped as many M$S programs as I could

[#4]

Quote from: alanf

Have a look at  OpenOffice or its offshoot LibreOffice. Both of these are free.

Both of these should run quite adequately (and better then Microsoft Office) on a netbook though there are other open-source alternatives that are less demanding of hardware, a very popular 'lightweight' word processor being AbiWord: http://abisource.com/download/
With any open source software you have no licensing worries and very often excellent community support.

[#5]

Many thanks for the advice guys. I downloaded Open Office, he’s done his homework and uploaded it to his area on the school cloud
I’d call that another success for the PN forum; thanks again
Rob