Microsoft Office 2016 Product Activation Failed Remove

Microsoft Office 2016 Product Activation Failed Remove Windows 10
Microsoft Office 2016 Product Activation Failed Remove Watermark
Microsoft Office 2016 Product Activation Failed Remove Key

Unlicensed Product/Product Activation Failed: Both of these show up on the title bar next to the title of the opened document. If the latter message shows up instead of the former, it is still possible to use the full functionalities of Word for an indeterminate period; Microsoft Office Activation Wizard: Pops up the minute a Word document is opened. It tells you your copy of the application isn’t activated and contains options for (re)activation.
Don't waste your time searching for the product keys of Microsoft Office 2016 because there is a better solution for activation of MS Office 2016 permanently without the product key. In this solution you need to copy your activation code to a Notepad file, then Save it As a.cmd file on your desktop, and final step is to execute the.cmd file.
He also bought a retail version of Office 2016 and activated it. After each start of any of the Office 2016 apps, he received an Office 365 activation pop-up window saying: Let’s get started. Try (Get a free trial of Office 365) Buy (Buy Office from the Microsoft store) Activate (Enter your Product Key or sign in).

If Office activation fails, you'll see Unlicensed Product or Non-commercial use / Unlicensed Product in the title bar of your Office apps, and most features of Office are disabled. To restore all features of Office, you'll need to fix the problem that's causing activation to fail. Step 1: Sign in to Office.

Learning has never been so easy!

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.

8 Steps total

Step 1: Quit all open Office applications.

Microsoft Office 2016 Product Activation Failed Remove Windows 10

Step 2: Open an elevated command prompt.

Step 3: Navigate to your installed Office subdirectory

In my Office 2016 case, that path was:

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:

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:

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

Microsoft Office 2016 Product Activation Failed Remove

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 :)

KB ID 0000548

Problem

Fired up one of my test machines this morning, and opened Outlook to see,

Error: Microsoft Outlook (Product Activation Failed)

Though if you open other applications you will get the same;

Error: Microsoft Word (Product Activation Failed)
Error: Microsoft Excel (Product Activation Failed)

etc.

Solution

I’m not sure why this happened, (perhaps I entered the wrong key when I installed it). But it’s simple to fix.

1. In this Example I’m using Outlook but select > File > Help > Change Product Key.

2. Enter a valid Office 2010 key > Continue > Follow the on-screen prompts.

3. When finished, restart Outlook and it will prompt you to activate, again follow the instructions.

Microsoft Office 2016 Product Activation Failed Remove Watermark

4. When complete it should say “Thank You. You copy of Microsoft Office {version} is activated” > Restart your Office applications to remove the red warning bar.

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