Office 2013 - Need to Activate WITHOUT creating MS Account!

Anonymous
2013-04-04T10:07:22+00:00

We are a small business providing IT products and support for a number of small to medium businesses in our local area. Providing new PCs with MS Office has long been a big part of what we do. With Office 2013 OEM, it seems that activation requires creating a unique MS account for each installation with no obvious way around it. 

This is utterly stupid. Office is supposed to activate on HARDWARE - not an individual. Companies that have many computers and a high turnover of staff use the same computer for many different people. Linking Office to an individual's email account is a very bad idea - especially in a business environment where using personal email is not acceptable.

Creating a company-wide MS account to activate all the software seemed like a usable workaround; until MS informed us that each activation had to be with a unique account.

Add on to this the confusion that many people face when asked to create an MS account of their own and activate their software (things that are completely unfamiliar to many of our customers) and MS seem to have created a support nightmare for us front-line support engineers.

And what about re-installing Office in the future? If an MS account is created but only used for the Office Activation, surely it will expire after so long?

And what about customers that have no internet access? They do exist! How are they supposed to use the software?

MS have tried to cut out their long-time sales partners by introducing and pushing subscription-based Office 365, which eliminates the profit we made from selling physical products with machines - and the latest Office OEM versions that we CAN sell have shot up in price to almost unsalable levels. Volume licensing is also not a solution for many businesses that simply do not have the cash flow to purchase large numbers of licenses at once. Customers also do not want to be tied in to subscription services for software that they are used to owning outright with no recurring costs.

We desperately need an easy solution to this - any suggestions appreciated. Or should I just start recommending OpenOffice to our customers now?

Thanks,

Alex

EDIT 12/04/13:

It is even worse than I thought originally. I have just been contacted by a customer complaining that they activated their new Office 2013 using the Administrator account before rolling the machine out to their user, only to find that Office then prompted the user to activate AGAIN when they logged on. it then refused to activate again, saying that it had already been activated!

This is completely unacceptable. Some customers have a large turnover of staff using the same machine; most require at least a couple of different users. What are MS playing at?

Microsoft 365 and Office | Install, redeem, activate | For home | Windows

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  1. Anonymous
    2014-02-20T18:56:42+00:00

    Having the same issue . . . Have an Account, but it will not "Reactivate" after entering all of the required information . . . . I am a good 60 minutes into the process with no resolution . . . Welcome to the CLOUD!  Nothing but worthless VAPORWARE . . . Back to Office 2007 I go . . .

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  2. Anonymous
    2014-02-20T16:47:37+00:00

    Thanks for the suggestion Elemantal. There's no way of knowing if it's possible until it is asked of MS.

    The thing is that I spent 3-4 hours on the phone getting jettisoned from department to department after normal business hours in search of a resolution. My customers are much too busy to spend that kind of time on the phone to India. I wish MS thought the same of me.

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  3. Anonymous
    2014-02-20T16:28:43+00:00

    I am sure if you ask your customers to call and ask MS to reassociate them, they would.

    At least I have heard them do so, so ask your customers to call and check, if they refuse at least get them to speak to a supervisor.

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  4. Anonymous
    2014-02-20T04:45:27+00:00

    I really hope that MS is seeing this thread. My dilemma is that I used my own MS account to purchase Office 2013 software from the online store for my customers at their request. What's the harm with that, right? Well, now if they need to reinstall the software that they purchased from me I will need to enter my account credentials to download and install it on their computer. Bad idea if I'm not local or not their IT provider anymore. Office 2013 may be in use for 10+ years. Will I have to maintain these product keys for customers that long?

    And to make matters worse, MS spitefully refuses to transfer the MS accounts associated with the license if they have been activated. Nope, not even if you prove you purchased it with an order number and date?

    As a paying customer, I deserve better customer support than this.

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