Office 2010 activation fails after SP2 with error 0x80070190

Anonymous
2013-07-23T21:05:23+00:00

Windows 7 Pro, Office 2010 Pro Plus

I put Office 2010 SP2 on three identically configured machines this morning.  Two of them had previously had Office 2010 activated, the third had not yet been activated.  After SP2 was installed, the two machines with previously-activated versions of Office 2010 continue to work correctly;  the third machine demands that I activate Office - the process appears to run, but then fails with error code 0x80070190.

An initial call to Support yielded a request for me to install Hotfix for Windows KB947821.  That installed correctly, but did not fix the problem.  Before I call back, I thought I would put something out here to see if others have come across this problem.

A Google search on the error code keeps coming up with information implying that this may be related to a Beta status in Office 2010.  Is it possible that today's release of SP2 was not final code?

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

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Anonymous
2013-07-25T16:07:34+00:00

Aha!

I tried using the cscript cmd line process described elsewhere in this thread, and got a new error:

Last 5 characters of installed product key: XXXXX (they matched my MAK key, so the correct product key is already in place)

ERROR CODE: 0xC004F025

ERROR DESCRIPTION: The Software Licensing Service reported that the action requires administrator privilege.

So apparently UAC is getting in the way. 

I found this thread:

http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/windowsserver/en-US/8f2a5c3e-4e33-4fdb-8eb2-760dbeca0713/error0xc004f025-access-denied-the-requested-action-requires-elevated-priviliges

which led me to this post:

http://www.blogsdna.com/2168/windows-7-how-to-open-elevated-command-prompt-with-administrator-privileges.htm

Which FIXED THE PROBLEM!

The remaining question is, Why is UAC suddenly putting itself in charge of activation *after* SP2 when it did not appear to get involved previously?  I made no changes to UAC on any of the machines where SP2 was installed;  I try to avoid touching UAC as much as possible.

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  1. Anonymous
    2013-08-01T16:14:27+00:00

    From elsewhere in this thread:

    "I tried using the cscript cmd line process described elsewhere in this thread, and got a new error:

    Last 5 characters of installed product key: XXXXX (they matched my MAK key, so the correct product key is already in place)

    ERROR CODE: 0xC004F025

    ERROR DESCRIPTION: The Software Licensing Service reported that the action requires administrator privilege."

    All of us who are reporting this error are having the same issue.  We can make the activation work, but *only* if we go to a command prompt line AS ADMINISTRATOR (on an administrator account, no less), navigate to the MS Office folder and then run the command process to perform the activation.

    So apparently UAC is getting in the way.  I made no changes to UAC on any of the machines where SP2 was installed;  I try to avoid touching UAC as much as possible.  The question is, Why is UAC suddenly putting itself in charge of activation *after* SP2 when it did not appear to get involved prior to the installation of SP2? And, if this is a new requirement introduced in SP2, where is the supporting documentation for this?

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  2. Anonymous
    2013-07-31T08:34:28+00:00

    cscript ospp.vbs /act worked for me

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  3. Anonymous
    2013-07-29T06:03:36+00:00

    It seems if SP2 is installed before Office 2010 is activated, or if you have slipstreamed the SP2 updates, Office will not activate via GUI

    However, if you navigate to where Office is installed and right click on an Office program and Run As Administrator eg. EXCEL, POWERPNT, WINWORD

    Then GUI activation will succeed

    The same also applies to Visio and Project. No Office product will activate unless performed from an administrative command prompt or explicitly running the program as Administrator

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  4. Anonymous
    2013-07-29T05:13:10+00:00

    Same issue for me and PaulNSW's solution from the command line (with elevated privileges) works for me.

    Hopefully they will fix the GUI activation tool soon.

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