Office 2013 - Need to Activate WITHOUT creating MS Account!

My supervisor and I here in the IT department we have talked to thirteen (13!!!) different people at Microsoft Support for a continuous 4 hours now. They just keep transferring us to another person that can't help!

All we (supervisor and I) want to do is be able to activate the Project 2013 licenses we bought but they are apparently worthless!! Both of us are so incredibly frustrated that, if it was possible, we would take the entire company off of Microsoft products, return the 15 Surface Pro 3's we recently purchased, and go to Linux (or... *shudder* Apple)! Of course this is not feasible...

I just re read your question.  Is the problem you can't install and activate, or do you "only" want to avoid using "accounts" to activate the licenses?

EXACTLY how are the liceneses "apparently worthless". 

we need more detailed, specific information.

General info about 365/2013 licenses

A VERY IMPORTANT piece of information that MS has not been totally clear about is that the activation process has been fundamentally changed for Office 365/2013.  This is a huge change!

Office 2010 and earlier the license was tied to the hardware. A "signature" of the hardware and software was created and logged.  Your license was limited to being associated with 1, 2 or 3 specific computers.

Office 365/2013 has changed to be associated with EMAIL "accounts".  For home users that is usually a Hotmail/Outlook.com address. For corporate users that is a corporate email address.

In the past, you could go to any store and buy business licenses, install and activate them. NOW, for CORPORATIONS you have to use the online account management system, the "Admin Portal".   The process is now, you buy at least one license, create an "Administrator" account for your company, then buy more licenses and associate them with specific users using the admin portal.

Office 365 Business Admin Portal: / Office 365 Admin Center https://portal.microsoftonline.com/****

<snip>

Things you should know before you start:

• As the first person in your organization who creates the account, you will be the Office 365 administrator.
• After you add your users, they can install the latest version of Office.
• Important: For Office 365 Small Business Premium, the admin should enter all product keys during the setup process. Learn More

</snip>

steps to create a user account as Admin

http://office365.iyogi.com/help-support/create-user-account-as-admin.html

Simplifying the Office 365 admin experience

http://blogs.office.com/2014/05/21/simplifying-the-office-365-admin-experience/

Example Of a 3rd Party Administering Your Office 365

http://www.mamut.com/uk/support/search/faq.asp?lcid=2057&id=02025039

After you have activated Microsoft Office 365and set up your users, you will be able to log on to Microsoft Online Portal, which is your «home» for the Office 365

Office 365 Administration / Office 365 Administration Center / Office 365 Portal

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj819272.aspx

This page summarized methods of administering Office 365

Here is a LOT more information about the new process. At least skim some of these links

DIY Process for Managing Office 2013/365 licenses

Read this reply on Microsoft Community.

<snip>

For those visiting this thread in 2015 (or later):

UNOFFICIAL "OFFICE 2013 FOR BUSINESS" MANAGEMENT PROCEDURE:

I ran into the issues discussed in this thread with Microsoft Office 2013 for Business as well; I support multiple companies as a tech consultant & had to create a manual workflow for this.  It is not a professional move by Microsoft at all, but I'd imagine that it is by design: they want you to buy a monthly 365 subscription, so they're providing the minimum level of effort required to manage anything other than a bulk open-license KMS/MAK mass-activation service.  The bottom line is that you have to manage the license key list manually yourself, sorted by order of activation - otherwise you are screwed.  If you're already past that point, then you're in for a research project, which is annoying, but only has to be done once.  This is what you need to know:

1. For the 2013 Home & Business version, Microsoft requires an Office license key to be activated against an MS Live account.  See #2 & #3 below.
2. Although that email address is required for activation, that account can be de-coupled within an Office program after installation (it will default over to say the local domain account you're logged into), so you don't have to worry about having to manage your Microsoft activation "admin" account email address on every single computer (ex. Word: File > Account > "Sign out").  The sign-out is a one-time requirement & enables the computer to be "standalone".
3. The MS Live account can be based on any email address, so you can do ___@___.___ to have an in-house "admin account for managing the license keys.
4. You can only activate 30 products (2013 Office family products, that is) per Live account (Office, Project, etc.).  You can, of course, have multiple accounts since accounts are simply tied to a unique email address - so just make more email addresses.
5. I create a generic email address at each company I support (ex. ___@___.___).  If they have more than 30 accounts, I created a second account (ex. ___@___.___).  Technically they should be going with a MAK or KMS solution for a larger quantity of installations,, but I support many businesses with less than 300 users who don't have the infrastructure or buying workflow to setup app servers or who don't want to buy in bulk.  A lot of smaller companies buy computers on an as-needed basis & have no interest in buying licenses in bulk, especially since the cost for an open license is nearly twice as much as a single one-off license from a reseller like Amazon.
6. The keys are numbered based on the date & time when you registered them at office.com/setup - but Microsoft does not track the order for you, and the order listed in your account has no relevance to the actual order.  The information is hidden in a Microsoft database & it not visible in your account.  Thus, it is YOUR JOB to track them manually.  I use a simple Excel spreadsheet (or if the company doesn't have much in the way of email, just setup a Gmail account to pair the Live account to, then use a Google Docs spreadsheet).  I have the following column headers:

1. Live account email address (if they're planning on having more than 30 keys, since the email address must be different for the second group of 30 keys)
2. Activation number (1 through 30)
3. The license number itself
4. A computer identified (asset ID, username, workstation name, anything to know which computer it was installed on)

If the company has more than 30 keys, I create a new sheet in the Excel workbook to track the additional licenses.  Regarding licenses, you have 3 choices:

1. OEM (comes with the computer, say a Dell computer pre-loaded with Digital Delivery or a keycard)
2. Physical keycard (the ones in the small box)
3. Digital key delivery

Amazon has digital key delivery, which lets you buy a key instantly.  It's nice to have instant delivery, but that Amazon account has to be tied to an email address & managed by somebody, so it may be easier to have physical product keycards.  Price is typically the same as the download version.

7. If you pick the wrong number when activating Office, you can reset it by going into Programs & Features, right-clicking on the Office program, clicking Change, and selecting Online Repair.  This resets it to asking you to sign into to activate again (the old command-line re-arm commands don't work like previous versions of Office).  However, this takes a LONG TIME.  It's MUCH faster to simply un-install & reinstall Office.  Speaking of that, you can download an image of the installer from your Live account.  Find a Microsoft Office listing under My Account, then go to Install from a disc > I want to burn a disc > Download (green button).  It will download an IMG file, which you can either burn to a disc with something like ImgBurn, or mount with something like Pismo File Mount (install, then right-click and select "Quick Mount" to temporarily convert it to a read-only folder).

I drag out the installation folder & just use that, either off the company's file server, or off my personal USB stick.  This is the fastest way to install & re-install; otherwise you have to stream the installation from the Internet, which can take a super long time.  If you need to reinstall or transfer the license to new hardware, but get an error that the key was already activated, you can call in using the number on the Microsoft activation

8. I activate all keys by registering them on the Live account first, rather than when doing setup on the computer.  That way, on the local computer, I just install Office for Business from the folder off my USB stick, sign in with the email account, select the number I want to use, and it's ready to go.  To do that, first login to your Live account:

https://login.live.com/

Once you are logged in, type in your key code here:

https://officesetup.getmicrosoftkey.com/

Then write it down in your personal license tracking spreadsheet - which email address you used (the Live account), which computer it's going on, which number it is, and what the license number is.  This lets you easily reference it later.

9. If you need to transfer the license (or have changed hardware & it freaks out), install it & select the number from the list, then call them to reactivate it.  When it asks you how many computers you've installed it on, say "one", then it walk you through activating it on the new computer or replacement hardware.

All of this could be solved if Microsoft would simply provide you with a numbered list based the date you registered the key in your Live account.  It's also ridiculous that they limit each account to 30 products, and further ridiculous that they require an email address simply to register a standard piece of software.  Fortunately, these workarounds DO work.  You can de-couple your Live account after Office is installed & activated.  You can create a second email account for the next batch of 30 licenses.  You can track the licenses & associated information manually in a spreadsheet.  It's just extremely annoying.

I did not realize all of this the first time I did it.  I had already installed 19 keys, and needed to reinstall Office on a computer that had the original hard drive fail.  Boy, what a nightmare that was!  To add more salt to the wound, you can't just pull a key out using a key finder - the best you can do is find the last 5 digits or so of the key, because of the way Microsoft requires online activation now - it doesn't actually store the installed key on the computer in an accessible manner (not that it would matter - you'd still have to know what number it corresponds to in your Live account anyway, so you HAVE to keep track of it in a personal spreadsheet regardless).

TL;DR: Microsoft makes you register an email for Live account to activate Office & store your license keys in.  Each account can hold 30 license keys, and you can add more accounts by creating a different email address (doesn't have to be a Microsoft email).  However - and this is the core problem identified by this thread - they don't track the order, so you have to do that yourself - #1, #2, #3, #4, etc. - because when you install Office, it asks you for which number it is, not what license key it is (which is horribly stupid).  This is based on the time & date activated, so #1 would be the one you registered on Live last week, #2 would be the one you registered 3 days ago, and #3 would be the one you registered today.  They do not make that information visible, so it's easy to create a big mess if you don't track it.

</snip>

2014 09 03- announcing the new Office 365 deployment benefits for new customers! Find out about the new features and services here.

http://blogs.office.com/2014/09/03/announcing-office-365-deployment-benefits-new-customers/

The result is the Office 365 FastTrack Onboarding Center.

Announcing the Office 365 FastTrack Onboarding Center

The Office 365 FastTrack Onboarding Center delivers a quick and predictable way to get started and deployed in your organization. The Onboarding Center is available to customers and their preferred partners.  This new benefit is included at no charge to all new customers purchasing 150 seats or more of a qualified license purchase. The Microsoft Office 365 Onboarding Center, included as part of the service, will support the provisioning and configuration of Office 365 workloads including Exchange, SharePoint, Lync, Office 365 Pro Plus, and Yammer.  We will ensure that the Office 365 service is provisioned and ready for use in your organization.

Key features of the Office 365 FastTrack Onboarding Center:

• Direct remote assistance provided by an Office 365 onboarding expert who will assist with critical onboarding activities working with customers and partners.
• Robust suite of automated checks and configuration tools to enable tasks such as current state assessment, identity management, and domain configuration.
• Onboarding support will be available in the following languages: English, Chinese, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Brazilian, Portuguese, and Spanish.
• Available worldwide starting September 1, 2014.

Once your organization is on-boarded, you will want to get your users up and running as quickly as possible.  Depending on the Office 365 workload, additional activities may be required such as email or document migration.  In order to help customers through this phase we have created the Office 365 Adoption Offer.

Email Migration offer—delivered remotely by Microsoft.

Microsoft will work with you to remotely migrate all of your purchased mailboxes from the following source environments:

• Exchange Server 2003 or above
• Lotus Domino 7.0.3 or above
• Google Gmail
• IMAP accessible environments

The email migration offer is available to customers and partners as part of the adoption offer.  Microsoft delivers the migration service staffed by experts that will work with you to ensure that you get your users mail migrated over seamlessly.  For Email migration offer details terms, and conditions please see Email Migration offer.

Ensuring that customers realize the value of Office 365 in their organizations quickly while providing a smooth onboarding experience to their users is a top priority for the Office 365 team.  We are excited to make the Office 365 FastTrack Onboarding Center and the Office 365 Adoption Offer available to qualified new customers starting today.  For more details see Office 365 Deployment Center.

Office 365 Adoption Kit

http://aka.ms/o365kit

Spreadsheet with Links to user oriented quick start guides and training courses

Office 365 Small Business setup center

http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/office-365-business/office-365-small-business-setup-center-HA104218051.aspx

If you’re just getting started with Office 365 Small Business, here’s how to ramp up quickly and easily. Use our free videos, learning guides, and quick reference cards to help get you started.

Office 365 Small Business Setup Guide_en-AU.PDF

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

12 page PDF that walks you through setting up Office 365 in a business setting, includes a checklist.

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

Set up your organization on Office 365 Small Business

http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/office365-suite-help/set-up-your-organization-on-office-365-small-business-HA102818317.aspx

MS PinPoint - MS Marketplace - Search for Experts in your area

http://office365.pinpoint.microsoft.com/en-US/home

How does a company install and control licenses - Business

Using Click to Run virtualization, the process of getting new users running has substantially changed. Because CTR installations are so fast, you no longer have to pre-install the software for users.

A business IT Admin controls use of corporate Office 365 licenses through the Office 365 Administration Center online.

Overview:

• In the Office 365 Administration Center the designated Office Administrator sets up the new USER ID
• Setup the associated email account(s)
• Setup Office licenses allowed to the userid
• the new User logs in to their new computer
• in Internet Explorer the user goes to the “Office 365 Portal” site to get their allowed Office 365 installation
• using the Click to Run installation process, Office 365 is installed and running on a new computer is a matter of minutes.

The following links will provide you with more detailed information of where to look and what to do. You may require some additional support from an “expert” .

Free MS training for Office 365 Administration Center / Portal

http://office365support.ca/does-microsoft-have-free-training-for-the-new-office-365/

Excellent resource to get you started administering your business Office 365 licenses.

The first video, Exploring the Office 365 Administration Center  http://labs.officeignite.com/Guides/Exploring%20the%20Office%20365%20Administration%20Center.htm  (9:32), describes how to create new userids, and to assign Office licenses to them. It also very quickly breezes by how to install Office.

The second vidow, Office 365 Overview for IT Administrators http://labs.officeignite.com/Guides/Office%20365%20Overview%20for%20IT%20Administrators.htm  (14:00), quickly walks you through setting up new company and users.

On basic setup page, step 3 “Set up User Access” provides links to instructions on how to set up new users.

In Service Settings, Downloads, you can control what Office apps the user can download.

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Creating Users for the NEW Office 365

http://office365support.ca/creating-cloud-users-for-the-new-office-365/

This page provides more detailed instructions for setting up the new userids and granting them Office 365 licenses

Configuring Desktops for the NEW Office 365

http://office365support.ca/configuring-desktops-for-the-new-office-365/

The following post will document how to setup a Windows 8 desktop for a cloud user for Office 365. I have already installed Windows 8 and created the local account for my test user. I have logged into the Office 365 portal and had the user change his password. The password for Office 365 and the password for the desktop are the same.

Office 365 for enterprises: A tour for administrators

http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/videos/office-365-for-enterprises-a-tour-for-administrators-HA102654955.aspx

Office 365 for enterprises brings together the online services your business needs. To see how to set up and manage these services, watch these four short videos.

Where did My MSI go - Deployment Video

http://www.microsoft.com/resources/technet/en-us/office/media/video/video.html?cid=otc&from=mscomoffice&VideoID=670e3969-0509-4d3a-a8a6-ffbe526d3e6f&src=v5:endslate:related^play:related\_0&from=shareembed-syndication

10 minute comparison of MSI and CTR

Touches on corporate provisioning in”User Based License Model Activation”. Users activate/deactivate, but IT still has control to deprovision the license (starting at about minute 8:15).

Then in this video / article :

http://blogs.technet.com/b/office\_resource\_kit/archive/2013/03/20/the-new-office-garage-series-identity-activation-data-access.aspx

They again say the companies can still allow userid activation while maintaining control of the licenses through Active Directory

<snip>

Jeremy: So we showed the installation experience for a domain-joined computer where single sign on is enabled and one that is not domain-joined, but installs via the Office 365 portal. In the direct from portal case when you kick off the installation, you will see a file that looks something like this:

Setup.X86.en-us_O365ProPlusRetail_24*****-45a2-4eeb-b06f-b14****189c8_TX_PR_.exe

In a future episode we’ll talk about all of the configurations needed to suppress completely sign-in, first run experiences and user prompts. IT admins have had to deal with these in past releases of Office, but now there are ways to automatically sign users in to Office 365 installs picking up their domain credentials. I also showed the effects of deleting the user account from the Azure AD store and how it put Yoni’s Office into Reduced Functionality Mode (RFM) - even if Yoni installs Office on his personal devices using his organization’s Office software assets, once Yoni leaves the org the IT department can deprovision his personal installs. That keeps software asset management cleaner and IT is in control.

Yoni: Don’t forget we also had Mark Russinovich on the show and he explained the security model for online services with Azure AD - in your car. It sounds like they are taking the defense in depth approach to harden the service. And you made him slum it in your car, Jeremy.

</snip>

Overview of ID, Authentication and Authorization in Office 2013

<snip  http://blogs.technet.com/b/office\_resource\_kit/archive/2013/04/16/new-poster-and-content-roadmaps-about-office-identity-authentication-authorization-and-security.aspx >

This page has links to 3 posters. The first poster “Identity and Authentication in the Cloud: Office 2013 and Office 365” describes at a high level how to control new user setup in a corporate / small business environment.

</snip>

<snip  http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj683102.aspx  >

This page also has a link to the same poster online (http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=38193 has PDF and Visio versions of the chart). As well, it goes into more detail with information like the following:

… Because Office is a tool that is used by the same individual in two different roles, the new Office offers two identities with which users can log on to Office 2013:

• A Microsoft account, which most people use for personal business
• An organization ID that is assigned by Microsoft, which most people use when doing work for an organization, such as a business, charity, or school.

The credentials that are used to sign in are recognized as either personal or organizational. That sign-in identity becomes the user’s “home realm” and determines which documents the user has access to on SharePoint, SkyDrive, or Office 365 Services for a specific session. Each unique sign in identity is saved in a most-recently used list so that it is easy to switch between identities without leaving the Office experience.

….

a personal SkyDrive can be mounted to an organization identity so that personal documents can be accessed at work or school without ever switching identities. Also, when a user authenticates by using an identity, this authentication is valid for all Office applications, not just the application he or she signed in to.

….

Two logon types are supported when users sign in to Office 2013, a Microsoft account or an organization ID that is assigned by Microsoft.

Microsoft account (the user’s individual account). This account, formerly known as Windows Live ID, is the credential that users use to authenticate with the Microsoft network and is frequently used for personal or non-business work, such as volunteer work. To create a Microsoft account, a user provides a user name and password, certain demographic information, and “account proofs,” such as an alternative email address or phone number. For more information about the new Microsoft account, see What is a Microsoft account?. http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/p/?LinkId=268357

An organization ID that is assigned by Microsoft / Office 365 account ID that is assigned by Microsoft. This account is created for business use. An Office 365 account can be one of three types: a pure Office 365 ID, an Active Directory ID, or an Active Directory Federation Services ID. These are described below:

• Office 365 ID. This ID is created when an admin sets up an Office 365 domain and takes the form <user>@<org>.onmicrosoft.com, for example:

sally@contoso.onmicrosoft.com

• Organization ID that is assigned by Microsoft that is validated against a user’s Active Directory ID. An organization ID that is assigned by Microsoft and validated against Active Directory as follows:
  1. First, a person who has an [on-premise domain]&lt;user> account attempts to access organization resources.
  2. 2.   Next, the resource requests authentication from the user.
  3. 3.   Then, the user types in their organization user name and password.
  4. ser is authenticated, and is given access to the requested resource.
• An organization ID that is assigned by Microsoft that is validated against a user’s Active Directory Federation Services ID. An organization ID that is assigned by Microsoft and validated against Active Directory Federation Services (ADFS) as follows:
  1. First, one person who has an org.onmicrosoft.com attempts to access partner organization resources.
  2. Then, the resource requests authentication from the user.
  3. Next, the user types in their organization user name and password.
  4. Then, that user name and password are validated against the organization AD database.
  5. Finally, that same user name and password are passed to the partner’s federated AD database, the user is authenticated, and is given access to the requested resource.

For on-premises resources, Office 2013 uses the domain\alias user name for authentication. For federated resources, Office 2013 uses the alias@org.onmicrosoft.com user name for authentication.

</snip>

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User Account Management

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj819300.aspx

Sign-in for Small Business subscriptions

Users receive Windows Azure Active Directory cloud credentials—separate from other desktop or corporate credentials—for signing into Office 365 and other Microsoft cloud services.

Sign-in options for Enterprise, Midsize Business, Kiosk, Academic, and Government subscriptions

Office 365 for Enterprise, Midsize Business, Kiosk, Academic, and Government subscriptions has two systems that can be used for user identities:

• Organizational account (cloud identity)   Users receive Windows Azure Active Directory cloud credentials—separate from other desktop or corporate credentials—for signing into Office 365 and other Microsoft cloud services. This is the default identity, and is recommended for small and midsize businesses in order to minimize deployment complexity. Passwords for organizational accounts use the Windows Azure Active Directory password policy.
• Federated account (federated identity)   For all subscriptions other than Office 365 Small Business and Office 365 Small Business Premium, in organizations with on-premises Active Directory that use single sign-on (SSO), users can sign into Office 365 services by using their Active Directory credentials. The corporate Active Directory stores and controls the password policy. For information about SSO, see Single sign-on roadmap.

The type of identity affects the user experience and user account management options, as well as hardware and software requirements and other deployment considerations.

Custom domains and identity options

When you create a new user, the user’s sign-in name and email address are assigned to the default domain as set in the Office 365 admin center. By default, the Office 365 subscription uses the <company name>.**onmicrosoft.com** domain that was created with the Office 365 account. You can add one or more custom domains to Office 365 rather than retaining the onmicrosoft.com domain, and can assign users to sign in with any of the validated domains. Each user’s assigned domain is the email address that will appear on sent and received email messages.

You can host up to 600 registered Inte

Rohn007, the fact that your response to such a simple question takes so much screen space tells the entire story.

The answer should be:

"Insert the distribution disk.  Run setup.exe.  Enter the license key code when requested."

The hubris and arrogance being shown by Microsoft in their attempts to force cloud use and individual accounts per user-machine combination is beyond ridiculous.

I had hoped that the last page of this thread would contain recent posts saying this problem had been corrected but unfortunately no.  I'm sitting here staring at a "Create Microsoft Account" page not even knowing how to proceed.  This installation is going on a system that is shared by several people so the idea of assigning it to a single person (or even creating some never-to-be-used-again Microsoft account for them) doesn't make sense.  We have a company-wide general email address that I would like to use for all Office activations but apparently this isn't allowed.

THANKS, OBAMA...I mean MICROSOFT,

I found this to be the best solution:

https://www.libreoffice.org/download/libreoffice-fresh/