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
    2014-06-16T18:18:11+00:00

    You would have understood by now that ms is not going to change how office 365 / 2013 works now, right?

    Anyways once again, this is not the right place to register your complain. You being a re-seller would definitely have a direct link to ms, use that.

    We are normal users here without mostly any kind of links to ms.

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  2. Anonymous
    2014-06-16T18:25:37+00:00

    Dear Elemental,

    Ahahahaha! Because you're joking right?

    "You would have understood by now that ms is not going to change" So shut up? Right?

    "Anyways once again, this is not the right place to register your complain." Oh really? And the best: "a direct link to MS? AHAHAHAHAAH

    Ahhh...some people.

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  3. Anonymous
    2014-06-16T18:51:47+00:00

    MS is starting to publish and publicize more "how to" information for business users.  As well as hotmail accounts you can use corporate email. 

    The short, high-level, answer to your problem is that you have to use the "Admin portal" to buy and administer their licenses individually.  here are some links for you too look at

    Office 365 Small Business Setup Guide

    http://click.email.office.com/?qs=8c110302703630d7a52f03cd54459495cd8ec6d573e41d2e1d29f7b0249b213b17d4af2c2d012d19

    Although it is only 12 pages long, it has links to MANY additional web pages of detailed instructions

    Note: at the top of Page 4 there is a broken link "Setup your domain", it should be going to this page; http://office.microsoft.com/en-ca/office365-suite-help/set-up-and-manage-domains-HA102819938.aspx

    For your current problem, I suspect your best approach is to contact MS Support.  Fight your way past first level support till you find someone who cancel the current product keys and re-issue you with new ones. That way you can setup the user accounts "properly" through the admin portal.

    Also download and take a look at the Office 365 Adoption Kit at http://aka.ms/o365kit

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  4. Anonymous
    2014-06-17T00:25:49+00:00

    We have been running into similar issues. We are starting to ween our customer's away from Microsoft Office. There are plenty of other options out there, and although they may not be as mature as Office is, they will do the job for 90% of people who need an office suite.

    The rest can install it themselves, on all their company computers, and deal with the stupid Microsoft issues themselves. We have had it with spending hours trying to solve problems created by people at MS who think they know better than everyone else. We will no longer pay to solve problems caused by Microsoft. (by paying, I mean the labour we have to spend and don't get reimbursed for).

    The best advice we give customers is: Stay away from Office 365 unless you like renting software (not a single customer of ours has kept that software after we explain to them they they have to pay for it every year), and don't bother with MS Office unless you have to for some obscure reason, even then look for an older version.

    Microsoft is one of the only companies I have ever seen who actively do things to try and drive customers away.

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  5. Anonymous
    2014-06-17T07:46:58+00:00

    You're right, especially on the:

    "a direct link to MS"? AHAHAHAHAAH

    That part tickled me too!

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