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On a new Surface tablet, I removed the retail products and installed ProPlus from Volume Licensing. However, each Office application prompted for activation. When a product key was entered, the Office application would still report it was not activated.

The step-by-step explains how to use OSPP.VBS to resolve this issue.

Method 1: You use batch file to activate Office 365 without product key. Step 1: You copy the code below into a new text document. You copy the code by click here. Then you create a new text document. Step 2: You paste the code into the text file. Then save it as a batch file (named “1click.cmd”). Note: If you use Windows 10, you disable. Jan 23, 2021 Office 365 is ready to activate without the product key. Office 365 Activation with license key. Go to the Office 365 dedicated setup pages. If you have an account, Sign in. Enter the license key given on the purchase confirmation email and then click Next. You are ready to use Office 365 now. If this article helps you then follow Techdee for more!

8 Steps total

Step 1: Quit all open Office applications.

Step 2: Open an elevated command prompt.

Step 3: Navigate to your installed Office subdirectory

Activate Ms Office 365 Free

In my Office 2016 case, that path was:

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C:Program Files (x86)Microsoft OfficeOffice16

Step 4: At the prompt, enter: cscript.exe ospp.vbs /dstatus

Example output:

---Processing--------------------------
---------------------------------------
PRODUCT ID: 00339-23044-55497-AA566
SKU ID: c47456e3-265d-47b6-8ca0-c30abbd0ca36
LICENSE NAME: Office 16, Office16ProPlusVL_MAK edition
LICENSE DESCRIPTION: Office 16, RETAIL(MAK) channel
LICENSE STATUS: ---LICENSED---
Last 5 characters of installed product key: WFHBB
---------------------------------------
PRODUCT ID: 00200-70000-00000-AA156
SKU ID: d7279dd0-e175-49fe-a623-8fc2fc00afc4
LICENSE NAME: Office 16, Office16O365HomePremR_Grace edition
LICENSE DESCRIPTION: Office 16, RETAIL(Grace) channel
LICENSE STATUS: ---NOTIFICATIONS---
ERROR CODE: 0xC004F009
ERROR DESCRIPTION: The Software Licensing Service reported that the grace period expired.
Last 5 characters of installed product key: KHGM9
---------------------------------------
---------------------------------------
---Exiting-----------------------------

In my case, I needed to remove the Office 16, Office16O365HomePremR_Grace edition item.

Step 5: Note the last five characters of the product key you want to remove.

In my case, the Office 16, Office16O365HomePremR_Grace edition characters were:

Last 5 characters of installed product key: KHGM9

Step 6: Enter: cscript.exe ospp.vbs /unpkey:[LASTFIVECHARACTERSOFKEYTOREMOVE]

In my case:

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cscript.exe ospp.vbs /unpkey:KHGM9

Output is as follows:

---Processing--------------------------
---------------------------------------
Uninstalling product key for: Office 16, Office16O365HomePremR_Grace edition

---------------------------------------
---Exiting-----------------------------

Step 7: Rerun cscript.exe ospp.vbs /dstatus

This is to confirm that the product key is removed. My output:

---Processing--------------------------
---------------------------------------
PRODUCT ID: 00339-23044-55497-AA566
SKU ID: c47456e3-265d-47b6-8ca0-c30abbd0ca36
LICENSE NAME: Office 16, Office16ProPlusVL_MAK edition
LICENSE DESCRIPTION: Office 16, RETAIL(MAK) channel
LICENSE STATUS: ---LICENSED---
Last 5 characters of installed product key: WFHBB
---------------------------------------
---------------------------------------
---Exiting-----------------------------

Note we no longer see the Office 16, Office16O365HomePremR_Grace edition item.

Step 8: Launch any Office product to confirm it does not prompt for activation

This flummoxed me for two days. However, calling the Volume Licence Support line led to this quick fix.

866-230-0560

3 Comments

• Mace
  Mike400 Sep 10, 2018 at 06:30pm

  It's a known bug relating to the Microsoft Office Desktop Applications. Uninstall those and then go delete these two keys in the registry:

  HKLMSOFTWAREWow6432NodeMicrosoftOffice16.0CommonOEM
  HKLMSOFTWAREMicrosoftOffice16.0CommonOEM

  Close all MS-Office applications and restart them. You don't need to reboot the PC.

• Serrano
  mwhalenhtc Sep 12, 2018 at 05:08pm

  Thanks a bunch, @Mike400. I appreciate your help. I'm going to try that now on yet another computer with an Office problem.

• Pimiento
  boingone Sep 21, 2018 at 02:19am

  Hi mwhalenhtc, i worked on this problem over two weeks. I already removed the two OEM registry keys but still getting the activation popup.

  The ospp.vbs works, Thanks :)

Note

Office 365 ProPlus is being renamed to Microsoft 365 Apps for enterprise. For more information about this change, read this blog post.

Summary

This article lists product IDs that are supported by the Microsoft Office Deployment Tool.

More Information

The following product IDs are supported by the Office Deployment Tool in Office 365 and Microsoft 365 deployments:

• O365ProPlusRetail
• O365BusinessRetail
• VisioProRetail
• ProjectProRetail
• AccessRuntimeRetail
• LanguagePack

For more information about using these product IDs with the Office Deployment Tool, see Configuration options for the Office Deployment Tool (Product element section).

Note

If you use the wrong product ID, you can't activate Office.

The following table lists Office 365 and Microsoft 365 plan names and the correct product ID to use for that plan:

Office 365 Pro Plus Retail Product Key Code

Office 365 Pro Plus Product Key

In addition to these product IDs, the following non-Office 365 product IDs are supported by this tool:

Note

For Lync or Skype for Business, see the table at the end of this article.

• AccessRetail
• Access2019Retail
• Access2019Volume
• Access2021Volume
• ExcelRetail
• Excel2019Retail
• Excel2019Volume
• Excel2021Volume
• HomeBusinessRetail
• HomeBusiness2019Retail
• HomeStudentRetail
• HomeStudent2019Retail
• O365HomePremRetail
• OneNoteFreeRetail
• OneNoteRetail
• OneNote2021Volume
• OutlookRetail
• Outlook2019Retail
• Outlook2019Volume
• Outlook2021Volume
• Personal2019Retail
• PowerPointRetail
• PowerPoint2019Retail
• PowerPoint2019Volume
• PowerPoint2021Volume
• ProfessionalRetail
• Professional2019Retail
• ProjectProXVolume
• ProjectPro2019Retail
• ProjectPro2019Volume
• ProjectPro2021Volume
• ProjectStdRetail
• ProjectStdXVolume
• ProjectStd2019Retail
• ProjectStd2019Volume
• ProjectStd2021Volume
• ProPlus2019Volume
• ProPlus2021Volume
• ProPlusSPLA2021Volume
• ProPlus2019Retail
• PublisherRetail
• Publisher2019Retail
• Publisher2019Volume
• Publisher2021Volume
• Standard2019Volume
• Standard2021Volume
• StandardSPLA2021Volume
• VisioProXVolume
• VisioPro2019Retail
• VisioPro2019Volume
• VisioPro2021Volume
• VisioStdRetail
• VisioStdXVolume
• VisioStd2019Retail
• VisioStd2019Volume
• VisioStd2021Volume
• WordRetail
• Word2019Retail
• Word2019Volume
• Word2021Volume

For managing the Lync or Skype for Business clients, the following table lists the tool version and the correct product ID.

Office 365 2016 Product Key Free