Office 365: Activation Problems - Remove License Files

In some cases Office 365 through a University of Minnesota subscription will install but not activate, and standard troubleshooting does not help. Removal of license files from previous Office installations may solve the problem. These directions are intended for use with Office 365 on personally-owned computers, not University-owned computers. See directions below.
 

Windows: Removing Office 365 License Files

 
  1. Open a command prompt as Administrator:
    1. Type CMD into the Windows Search
    2. Right-click on the Command Prompt icon
    3. Click Run As Administrator
    4. Click OK to the popup.
  2. In the command window, type in the following 2 commands:
    cd C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Office\Office16
    cscript ospp.vbs /dstatus
  3. Look for output similar to the following (some details omitted):
    ERROR CODE: 0xC004FC07
    ERROR DESCRIPTION: The Software Licensing Service reported that the validity period expired.
    Last 5 characters of installed product key: WXYZ9   Important! WXYZ9 is an example!
     
    Note the last 5 characters listed in your output. It's WXYZ9 in this example, but will be different on your computer.
     
  4. In the command window, type the following, but use your 5-character key instead of the WXYZ9 example:
    cscript ospp.vbs /unpkey:WXYZ9
  5. Repeat step 4 for any additional product keys listed in step 3.
  6. When complete, re-run the following in the command window:
    cscript ospp.vbs /dstatus
The following output shows success (some details omitted):
 
---Processing--------------------------
---------------------------------------
<No installed product keys detected>
---------------------------------------
---------------------------------------
 
If the above process worked, you can try again to activate Office.
 
See also similar directions here:
 
 

Mac: Removing Office 365 License Files

 
Directions in this article may help solve this problem for Macs: How to remove Office license files on a Mac.
 

Additional Information

 

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