Maximum PC

I figured that this was answered before. but I got tired of looking for the post. Anyways my dad got a new laptop for Christmas, I installed all of the lastest drivers, defs, updates, software, you name it. Anyways he noticed the new laptop and liked it, but since the following day, he stopped using it. I asked him recently why doesn't use it, still using his crappy laptop that is falling apart (needs reinstall of OS). He tells me that there is no software installed, which I figured he referred to microsoft works. It works fine for me, the rest of the fam and a few friends.

Here's my question, what is the essential difference between the two suites? and which one would you perfer?

I tried looking around and most seem to be in favor of open office. I would like to hear from you guys on your experience.

Microsoft Works is like a lite version of the much more costly Microsoft Office.
OpenOffice/Libre Office is free... and rather a semi-clone of Microsoft Office.
Myself, I use an old version of Works because it is simpler, does all I need, and can do the one thing that OO/LO can't: print full-page graphs.
To me, the full-size suites are overkill. But they're unbeatable if used in a commercial office environment.

Open Office is;

1. No M$ (or their bloated software),
2. Open source,
3. Customizable to what components to install (you don't have to put everything in),
4. Has the ability to work with different formats including M$ which can be set as default,
5. Free,
6. Not M$ (did I say that already).

I've used it for years with only a few issues due to M$'s proprietary crap.

I donno... I still use my 2003 version of office in most situations... But I do have OO on most of my computers for viewing and light edits of documents. The major downside with OO is that sometimes the formatting changes, even when staying with .doc formats. Lately, I've been using google cloud for documents for writing essays, idea generation and case studies; but I'll import the document back into office on a computer for final formatting.