Open terminal and open these folders using ‘open .’ for instance cd /Library/Preferences && open .
Otherwise you have to type very long sudo cp strings and it’s easier to drag files.
You can manually copy the MS Office files from the backup. Copy them from the backup to their corresponding locations on your boot volume:
/Applications/Microsoft Office 2011
/Library/Application Support/Microsoft
/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.microsoft* (I also found a LaunchAgents directory? Might vary by OS X version.)
/Library/Preferences/com.microsoft*
/Library/PrivilegedHelperTools/com.microsoft*
you should now be able to launch MS Office with your old licensing information, etc.