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Product key for Office 2016 for Mac already in use by other user. Cannot access other user. Is there a work around?

J

JamieMB

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jul 2, 2020
1
0
Hi,

I have Office for Mac 2016 on a MacBook that is dying. I migrated the software to my new MacBook. I have the product key, which is valid. Is there a way to enter the product key directly and bypass Microsofts process? Or is there a way to move some sort of keychain files to activate the copy on my new MacBook? I have not had access to the email account that the key was originally "registered" to back in 2016 for several years.

I have tried MS support and they go in circles. Basically, they say I need to figure out how to get into the old email. I ask them to assign an new registration key, but they say the one I have is already in use. Which I know. I rarely use office, so I don't want to buy a new copy. Any help is appreciated.

(It is currently working and showing registered on my old MacBook. Only it is a 2011 and very slow and I am planning on recycling it as soon as I finish moving the software. This is the last piece.)
 
Is there no way for you to reset the password for your old email? Or is it something like an old work account which makes it impossible?

Did you register your mobile number? That may provide a password reset option. If you login to office.com then choose forgot password.

Unfortunately activation is machine specific and on Microsoft's end. Even if you could somehow move the activation response key. It would not work with your machine ID.
 
JamieMB said:
Hi,

I have Office for Mac 2016 on a MacBook that is dying. I migrated the software to my new MacBook. I have the product key, which is valid. Is there a way to enter the product key directly and bypass Microsofts process? Or is there a way to move some sort of keychain files to activate the copy on my new MacBook? I have not had access to the email account that the key was originally "registered" to back in 2016 for several years.

I have tried MS support and they go in circles. Basically, they say I need to figure out how to get into the old email. I ask them to assign an new registration key, but they say the one I have is already in use. Which I know. I rarely use office, so I don't want to buy a new copy. Any help is appreciated.

(It is currently working and showing registered on my old MacBook. Only it is a 2011 and very slow and I am planning on recycling it as soon as I finish moving the software. This is the last piece.)
Click to expand...

I don't think so, no.

When you register a Product Key I believe it now uses it and hardware identifiers to create an immutable hash. On launch it'll repeat the exercise to see if the computed hash matches the stored version, if it doesn't, then it'll refuse to launch.

I think this was possible ~10 years ago, but Microsoft may have cottoned on to it.
 
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