The person who sold me Vista Ultimate said that it came with everything I
needed for business (word, excel, etc),
Neither Windows Vista, nor any other version of Windows, has ever come
with Word or Excel nor with any other significant application
software.
If he told you that, one of three things is true.
1. He purposely lied to you
2. He doesn't know what he's talking about.
3. If he sold you a computer with Vista preinstalled, not just Vista
by itself, he may have meant that the computer came with Vista *and*
with Microsoft Office.
yet I don't find any of these
programs.
Then number 3 is unlikely. Regardless of whether 1 or 2 is true, this
sounds like a good store to avoid in the future.
Should they be there, or should I buy the software separately?
If you want an Office Suite, you'll need to get it separately. You
have several choices:
1. The current version of Microsoft is Office 2007. It's expensive.
2. You should be able to find a used copy of an older version of
Microsoft Office for considerably less money. Office 2000, 2002 (aka
Office XP), and Office 2003 all work under Vista, although Outlook
2000 won't save your password.
3. You can buy WordPerfect Office. Version X4 just came out. Although
WordPerfect is no longer the industry leader it used to be, some of us
still prefer it.
4. You can use (or at least try) the freeware OpenOffice, which many
people like.