Microsoft Office Activation

[antonypg]

I was just trying to get an idea of how many people have problems with Microsoft Office activation.

I bought my daughter an iMac for use at university. She downloaded a copy of Office 365 which she got free from University. This tended to work quite well, but every now and then would complain it was not activated. Sometimes this was a real pain when documents were left on the desktop and at some point during the next day Office would de-activate and not allow you to save changes.

I recently got a copy of Office from my workplace using the "Microsoft Home Use Program". This has been behaving but this morning after restarting when installing updates I again got the dreaded "you must activate". After logging in to Microsoft it still refused to activate, saying I must try later or phone. I will have to spend yet more hours later trying to fix this problem.

I have gone through the forums trying numerous suggestions for uninstalling/re-installing/re-registering etc., but I still get the problem every now and then.

Do other people have these problems? Would paying for a full 365 subscription solve these problems? Is this purely a problem with the Mac version of Office?

On my MacBook I am Microsoft free, I just use Pages and Numbers, but my daughter really does need Office for her university work.

 

[LDec]

I had this problem once, more less year ago. Contacted MSFT and they have sent me a link for deactivation/removal tool. After removing and fresh install all this reactivations requests stopped.
I hope this info will help you.

 

[mj_]

I've been using Microsoft Office 2016 and now 2019 on numerous Macs for many years and never had this issue. Same thing at work - no issues at all over the last years, not once. Neither with Office for Mac nor with Office for Windows.

Just a shot in the dark: do you have any optimizer tools or system tuning tools or cleanup tools installed on your Macs?

 

[antonypg]

I've been using Microsoft Office 2016 and now 2019 on numerous Macs for many years and never had this issue. Same thing at work - no issues at all over the last years, not once. Neither with Office for Mac nor with Office for Windows.

Just a shot in the dark: do you have any optimizer tools or system tuning tools or cleanup tools installed on your Macs?

I try to keep clear of all optimiser tools, I just stick to the Apple software plus Microsoft Office. I have just re-activated the software using the phone as it refused to re-activate over the internet. I will see how long it works for this time.

 

[mj_]

The only time I have experienced sudden deactivation of MS Office was when the person was running an illegal copy obtained from those dubious $3 per license auctions on eBay. Never happened to me though, I've only seen it on other people's computers, both Windows and macOS. It should not happen with Office 365 though, and it seems that you're running a legitimate copy of Office on both Macs.

The basic principle is that Office, whether it's 365 of 2016/2019, checks regularly whether or not it is still licensed. I'm not 100% certain on how often that is but I think it's ever 30 days or so. If that check fails it automatically deactivates and needs to be reactivated manually again. I'm guessing that in your case this regular license check fails for some reason.

 

[antonypg]

I was using the university supplied Office 365, then I switched to the "Home Worker" version, maybe there was some confusion with the licencing. Now I have activated over the phone I will keep my fingers crossed. The activation wizard made me enter a 40 or 50 digit number into the phone and then I received a similarly long code which I had to enter. The wizard even said to keep a note of this code in case I had to use it again.

So far I have spent longer installing/uninstalling/registering and fault finding Microsoft Office than I actually have using it!!! As soon as my daughter leaves university I will probably remove Microsoft Office and just stick to Pages and Numbers.

 

[posguy99]

Office 365 requires periodic check-ins with the activation server, that's why it asks for a login when you install it. If you deny it an internet connection, it will put itself in read-only mode until it can check in.

 

[CTHarrryH]

I had to go through the deactivate and then re-activate process - haven't had a problem since.

 

[SDColorado]

I haven't had that problem yet, though I have only been an Office 365 user for about 18 months, but so far it with it installed on both Mac and PC platforms at home and office, it hasn't had that issue.

 

[antonypg]

I haven't had that problem yet, though I have only been an Office 365 user for about 18 months, but so far it with it installed on both Mac and PC platforms at home and office, it hasn't had that issue.

Thanks for letting me know. When checking through the forums it was getting hard to tell just how many people see these problems with Office activation.

Just a quick question, do you ever have a problem with Word or Excel going very slow or stalling? A friend of mine has Office on her iMac and she complains that Word and Excel occasionally freeze for a few seconds. I think it may be related to when Outlook is trying to check email as it only appears to happen if Outlook is open.

 

[SDColorado]

Thanks for letting me know. When checking through the forums it was getting hard to tell just how many people see these problems with Office activation.

Just a quick question, do you ever have a problem with Word or Excel going very slow or stalling? A friend of mine has Office on her iMac and she complains that Word and Excel occasionally freeze for a few seconds. I think it may be related to when Outlook is trying to check email as it only appears to happen if Outlook is open.

No, I can't say we have. My wife and I have it installed on her 2016 MBP and my 2015 iMac and 2018 MBP, but no issues with it lagging or freezing.

Full disclosure, however, I did opt to Join the Office Insider Program, Slow Release. So my version may not be the same. The current version I am using is 16.22 (190211).

 

[jahala]

Thanks for letting me know. When checking through the forums it was getting hard to tell just how many people see these problems with Office activation.

Just a quick question, do you ever have a problem with Word or Excel going very slow or stalling? A friend of mine has Office on her iMac and she complains that Word and Excel occasionally freeze for a few seconds. I think it may be related to when Outlook is trying to check email as it only appears to happen if Outlook is open.

Word is usually pretty well behaved for me, but Excel is very slow for me much of the time. It gets better if you turn off Autosave. It is a toggle switch in the upper left part of the window. Even after doing that, I still think Excel is too slow.