Install Office 2016 OEM without Live account

Microsoft is not the innocent messenger of the issue that began this thread; Microsoft is, in fact, the perpetrator of the problem. I know, because I posted it.

Please go back and read my initial post that began this thread. I am not, by any means, minimizing the complications brought on by the pre-used product key issue. But take Dell out of the equation, and my issue still exists. Take any and every reseller out of the equation, and my problem still exists. In fact, take everyone in the world but Microsoft, my client, and me out of the equation, and my problem still exists. And the only reason my client and I are in the equation is because I am trying to activate office on my client's new computer in the middle of the night. I never even got as far as any kind of previously-used key issue. I got only as far as all the complications that would be experienced (and as has been attested here by many) by any small business information systems support professional attempting to activate Office 2016: it requires information that is either none of my business or is unavailable, but most certainly is irrelevant, and it goes downhill from there.

The fact that nobody from Microsoft has had one useful thing to say yet in this thread is instructive. We all know that Microsoft HQ is in Redmond, WA (my home state, incidentally), and perhaps it really was no coincidence that this all came about just as Washington State legalized marijuana.

I can just hear the big celebration that night: "Hey, dudes," says Billy, "how about we require everybody get a Live account to register Office? That way, we can sell an extra copy of Office every time someone wants to reinstall it and has forgotten their Live account logon information."

"Yeah," comes the response, " and just think--we can get ten billion more Live accounts! Maybe we can get more accounts than Facebook and Twitter combined. Nobody will ever know that they were all set up just to activate Office and won't ever get used again for anything else."

"Great! And while we are at it, maybe we can have a security breach or release the license pool to some hacker in Upper Slobovia, or maybe just re-use our Windows 98 modal 7 license validation or something."

"Cool, man," says Billy, "That a wrap. Let's do it before the smoke clears and we go home--oh, wait, we are home. Anyway, I know a gullible IT guy that is about to make a purchase...anyone want to volunteer to help ignore the community when they figure it out tomorrow?"

BD

Brian D. Hart 

• read your original post, what brought me here

thank you

I have not a clue who this Mr Crusher is, not Wesley Wheaton - watching it now

Yeah. We definitely have two distinct issues:

1. The nonsense regarding Live account requirement for activation. This was #1 in my mind.
2. The problems with activation itself. I have a suspicion that this would be a problem even if it did not require a Live account. In fact, when I purchase Office 2013 online (now doing my best to avoid 2016 like the plague) for my clients, I regularly have to do telephone activation. I am buying this from a reputable local company and I never have any problem with the telephone activation, but this all started not that long before my nightmare with 2016 began, so I also suspect some sort of leak, hacked licensing DB, or perhaps someone has decrypted the license-key-generating process.

But either way, the Live account part just complicates my life. I can live with the occasional (and now, fairly regular) phone activation. I cannot deal effectively with Live-based activations.

and geez whiz, here I am in Idaho trying to do the same thing

think i need to go redneck