MS Office activation problem

J_B

Niece has had to have her Dell laptop repaired by the manufacturer (under warranty)
They have scrubbed the HD and now she's reinstalled her Office


MS Office Pro Plus 2016


Sadly it hasn't accepted the product key despite several tries both on-line and over the phone.


A bit of googling makes me wonder if it should have been uninstalled from the original laptop, but she wasn't told it was going to be scrubbed till they had looked at it!
I can find no way to disassociate / deactivate it from the old PC, does anyone have any ideas??

flashg67

just a thought - double check it's exactly the same version you're trying to activate - microsoft confuse things by having so many versions with similar names

J_B

flashg67 wrote: »

just a thought - double check it's exactly the same version you're trying to activate - microsoft confuse things by having so many versions with similar names

I'm not 100% certain, but I think what we did was to log into her MS account and download it from there, as it was already linked to her MS account.
But it won't accept the key, which we have in print, so, there's no misunderstanding.

grumpycrab

J_B wrote: »

MS Office Pro Plus 2016

I don't think "Plus" is a Dell provided Office product. Get your niece to enter the key (assuming from Dell) at
https://setup.office.com/downloadoffice/

Neil_Jones

If Dell provided the Office it would have only ever been a trial anyway, 25 uses or 60 days whichever comes first.

In previous versions of Office "Pro Plus" was a very strange beast and while I used to be able to get the product keys out finding which version of Office (H+S, Pro or whatever) it actually belonged to was a challenge on its own.

You could bash your product key in here and it'll give you the right file or redirect you accordingly:
https://products.office.com/en-gb/get-office-oem-download-page

But I think IIRC from Office 2016 onwards (or it might have 2013) you needed a Microsoft account to set the office up so you or whoever set it up would have had to make one for that purpose.

techquest

Try downloading the diagnostic tool for office activation problems and see if it helps.

https://aka.ms/diag_officeact

2016 is controlled by user account and the fact that it was deleted from the machine in the wipe was good enough, it was deleted and there should be no issue, sadly though MS can have problems that don't make any sense.

Let us know how you get on please.

Uxb1

Pro plus was a volume licenced product for corporate/educational etc type users to distribute/sell and as such the product key is not stored in an individuals MS account.
Last time I saw Office 2016 pro plus being re-installed the user logged onto the educational purchase platform website from where they got the heavily discounted software and got the key re-downloaded from there along with the download link

AndyPix

You should be able to reinstall it fine from your MS account.


The key you have on paper though isnt actually a product key - It's a key that lets you associate an install with your account. Once it's used it's useless.


To find your actual product key, go into your MS account and you should see your product there , there is a little link to the right that says "view key" .. hit that

J_B

Neil_Jones wrote: »

If Dell provided the Office it would have only ever been a trial anyway, 25 uses or 60 days whichever comes first.

Nope - it was from E Bay

Uxb1 wrote: »

Pro plus was a volume licenced product for corporate/educational etc type users to distribute/sell and as such the product key is not stored in an individuals MS account.

See above and below ...

AndyPix wrote: »

You should be able to reinstall it fine from your MS account.

I remember now, we installed it from her MS account page ...

AndyPix wrote: »

To find your actual product key, go into your MS account and you should see your product there , there is a little link to the right that says "view key" .. hit that

I have a screen dump of setup.office.com/home/getoffice

It says "Your products are below"
"Your product" MS Office Pro Plus 2016
"Your product Key" xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

"Download Now" which is what we did

AndyPix

^^ and that product key doesnt work ??


That's odd and must be an issue MS side - Just give them a bell and they should sort it pretty quick

grumpycrab

J_B wrote: »

MS Office Pro Plus 2016

J_B wrote: »

it was from E Bay

Ah. Either MS have pulled the volume license, its been used too many times, etc etc. As it probably only cost a fiver just buy another one.