Trouble keeping Office 2016 Professional Plus activated

2018-03-20

Question

_{Tuesday, March 20, 2018 2:20 PM}

Hi everyone,

The company I work for has recently had trouble with keeping Office 2016 activated. The issue is occurring on a handful of new computers and we have had zero luck getting this resolved. The systems are Dell Optiplex 7050s and they are running Windows 10 Pro x64 version 10.0.16299. I believe the issue stems from the Office apps that come preinstalled on the machines. Upon receiving the new computers, I uninstall the office apps, one by one, by using the uninstall option found in the start menu. From there, I install Office 2016 Pro Plus which is then activated using our VLA key. All appears fine for about 24 hours but then, the product deactivates and requests a license key or Microsoft account. You can re-enter the key but once you close and re-open an office program, an activation prompt springs up again. So far, I have tried the office activation tool, the office removal tool, revo uninstaller, activating as administrator, but nothing seems to make the activations stick. Does anyone have a suggestion? Your feedback and assistance is appreciated.

All replies (8)

_{Wednesday, March 21, 2018 7:12 AM}

Hi,

What is VLA key? For Volume licensed edition, the activation method are KMS, MAK and Office account.
What is the activation method you are using?

In the meantime, please run a command line using ospp.vbs to check the license status of your Office 2016. After you activate your Office 2016 via this “VLA key”, run CMD as administrators, and input the command line:
For 64bit Office:

For 32bit Office:

Then post back the results.

Any update on your side, feel free to let us know.

Best Regards,

Aaron Zhang

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_{Wednesday, March 21, 2018 12:35 PM}

Sorry for the improper vernacular. We use MAK. I am waiting to receive a response from one of our users that is experiencing the issue. Once I am able to remote in again, I will attempt to do what you have suggested above.

_{Wednesday, March 21, 2018 5:32 PM}

So I was able to get back into the user's PC. I ran the command as you said and here are the results:

C:\Windows\system32>cd C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office16

C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office16>cscript Ospp.vbs /dstatus
Microsoft (R) Windows Script Host Version 5.812
Copyright (C) Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

Input Error: Can not find script file "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office16\Ospp.vbs".

C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office16>cd C:\Program Files(x86)\Microsoft Office\Office16
The system cannot find the path specified.

C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office16>cd C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office16

C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office16>cd C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Office\Office16

C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Office\Office16>cscript Ospp.vbs /dstatus
Microsoft (R) Windows Script Host Version 5.812
Copyright (C) Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

Processing

PRODUCT ID: 00339-25320-67973-AA529
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: Y983Y

PRODUCT ID: 00200-70000-00000-AA775
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

C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Office\Office16>

_{Wednesday, March 21, 2018 5:44 PM}

It still sees the 365 office version but I cannot remove it.

_{Thursday, March 22, 2018 3:22 AM | 1 vote}

Hi,

If Office 365 not installed in this PC, you can run a command line using Ospp.vbs to remove this license status of Office 365. Here is how: run CMD as administrators, and in input the command line:

Any update on your side, feel free to let us know.

Best Regards,

Aaron Zhang

Please remember to mark the replies as answers if they helped. If you have feedback for TechNet Subscriber Support, contact [email protected].

Click here to learn more. Visit the dedicated forum to share, explore and talk to experts about Microsoft Teams.

_{Thursday, March 22, 2018 12:30 PM}

Sweet! I will give this a try as soon as I can.

_{Thursday, March 22, 2018 1:46 PM}

I ran the unpkey command and reopened Office. The activation messages have gone away. The issue doesn't crop up until about 24 hours later so while I am hopeful that this fixed the problem, I will wait until tomorrow afternoon before confirming. Thanks for the help.

_{Monday, March 26, 2018 10:19 AM}

Hi,

I am checking the status of this issue. Does this issue stop happening? Any update on your side, feel free to let us know.

Best Regards,

Aaron Zhang

Please remember to mark the replies as answers if they helped. If you have feedback for TechNet Subscriber Support, contact [email protected].

Click here to learn more. Visit the dedicated forum to share, explore and talk to experts about Microsoft Teams.

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Trouble keeping Office 2016 Professional Plus activated

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