Microsoft Office 365 Pro Plus is available free of charge to current University of Minnesota students, faculty, and staff. This article contains suggestions for troubleshooting problems with Office 365 installation or activation.
University owned devices can get Office 365 from Software Center (Windows) or Self Service (Mac).
Troubleshooting Suggestions
General
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Work through Office 365 installation directions in Microsoft Office 365 Pro Plus: For Faculty, Staff & Students Personally Owned Devices and note where questions or problems occur.
Login to Office Portal
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Can you log in at portal.office.com?
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See this Microsoft Office 365 How To article for sign in instructions Note that you first see a Microsoft sign in screen where you enter your UofM email (example: [email protected]), and then you are sent to a UofM sign in screen.
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If you have trouble signing in, clear cache and cookies and try again. For directions on how to do this, see this How To article on how to reset or clear browser cache and cookies.
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Try a different browser. Chrome and Firefox generally work well.
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If you can't sign in, are you eligible for Office 365? See below.
Eligibility
- Microsoft Office 365 is only available to active students. In order to retain "active" status, students must register for courses during each spring and fall term.
- If you are staff or faculty, do you have an on-going position at the U? If your appointment changes term-by-term, you may lose access during times when you are not on staff.
- Students, faculty and staff who leave the U will lose Office eligibility within a few days after they leave.
- Retirees and graduates do not retain eligibility for Office 365 when they leave the U.
- Interns or other non-paid positions are not eligible for Office 365.
- Employees classified as temporary or casual staff are not granted access by default, but can request it for 90 days by submitting this Office 365 Service Request form. If the user's role is still active at the end of that period, they can be renew their access by resubmitting the form.
Supported devices
- Is the device supported? Office 365 is available for Mac, Windows, iPhone, iPad, and Android phones and tablets. Check requirements of supported devices
- Do you see an error message "You can only install Office on a PC or Mac"? In the portal check whether "Office" or "Phone & tablet" is selected at the left of the page.
New installations: can't install
- Does the computer or device have other problems such as wifi issues or malware? Resolve the other problems, and try again with Office.
- Is another version of Office already installed on this computer? If so, uninstall other versions and try again.
- How many installations have you used? See portal.office.com to check how many activations are left, or to deactivate installations no longer needed.
Installed but cannot activate: quick fixes
- Check system date and time and correct if needed.
- Check Region settings. Mac: See Apple Menu -> System Preferences -> Language & Region. Windows: Control Panel -> Region. Change to the United States if the region is set to something else, then retry activation. After activation, the region can be changed back
- Temporarily disable antivirus or firewall programs
- Check for operating system updates. Mac: See Update macOS on Mac Windows: Windows Update: FAQ
Office 365 was installed but stopped working
- Has your eligibility for Office 365 changed? If you leave the U, you are no longer eligible for Office 365. Review eligibility above.
- Connect the computer or device to the internet. Office 365 needs to connect to the internet at least once every 30 days to stay active.
- Deactivate (at portal.office.com), uninstall, and reinstall.
Other sign-in issues
- Our Office 365 subscription does not include OneDrive or other online features of Office.
- If Office asks for a sign in, it may be asking for a login to use online features of Office. To use online features of Office, you can create a free, personal OneDrive account.
- Saving or syncing files in OneDrive requires a personal OneDrive account.
- Use of OneNote requires a personal OneDrive account.
- To create a free personal OneDrive account, or to recover a password for a previously-created personal OneDrive account, see OneDrive Personal Cloud Storage
- When creating a OneDrive account, use a personal email account, and not your UofM email address.
- It is inadvisable to store any University-related business on a personal OneDrive account.
Sign-in variations
In some cases activation does not seem to work using the standard sign-ins. If this happens, try the following.
- For coordinate campuses, use @umn.edu without your campus designation. For example: [email protected] should be [email protected]
Installing Office on Chromebook
- Microsoft's solution for Office on a Chromebook uses web-based Office. This is not available for University of Minnesota Office 365 accounts. See this Microsoft Support article for information on how to use Microsoft Office on a Chromebook.
Uninstall Office
- Uninstall Office
- Complete uninstall (Mac) and reinstall didn't help uninstall, if standard Uninstall Office for Mac
- Complete uninstall (Win) and reinstall didn't help uninstall, if standard Uninstall Office for Windows
Additional Resources
- Microsoft Office at the U, General Information
- Microsoft Office for University-owned computers - see Office (Microsoft)
- Microsoft Office 365 Installation Instructions
- Microsoft Office 365 FAQs
- Office 365 Portal - portal.office.com
- Office 365: Activation problems - remove license files
- If Office is installed but will not activate, removal of previous Office license files may help.
- Troubleshoot installing Office and Office 365 - Extensive list, for users and technical support staff, some more applicable to personal purchase of Office. Includes links for complete uninstall directions.
- Troubleshooting tips for Office 365 ProPlus - Intended for technical support staff, but some ideas may be useful to others.