Install Office 2016 OEM without Live account

We still don't have an actual answer from Microsoft. There are tons of us that paid for OEM Office 2016 and cannot use it in our environments. I purchased Office 2016 because, as a consultant, I was told the client wants to 'own' the software and not to have recurring fees.

I have spent hours on Microsoft support and they act like I'm the only one with this issue. Meanwhile, it's right here on the forums that tons of people are having this same exact problem. Is legal action the only option here?

I created a new Microsoft account to activate Office - but I keep getting a problem that says 'try the key again later.'

I just went through this again as well.  At least this time, after creating a Microsoft account, the activation worked--even though it appeared to fail with a "try again later" message.  This was a Dell computer with Ofc 2016 H&B preinstalled and purchased with the computer.  However, there still appeared to be a glitch in the version that showed "Office Petite something or other Enterprise" in French.  It is working. 

The last Dell I set up, instead of Office 2016, had Office 365 THREE TIMES in 3 different languages, preinstalled.  I didn't notice it, and neither did MS tech support until we had spent 45 minutes going through the "office 2016 installation loop" (enter key, add to MS account, enter key, add to account...), and the tech left the phone twice to confer with someone else.  That time we had to uninstall the three preinstalled Office 365 subscription versions and download 2016 H&B.

I know several people who have expressed a desire to move from 2010 to 2016, largely for the improved Outlook local ost file management.  I advise, "I'll show you where to get it.  You install yourself and be prepared to spend one hour or more on the phone with a technician you'll barely be able to understand, if at all, and you'll eventually get it working.  Just don't expect to install, enter the key, and then get back to work."

If MS is making the purchase version of Office difficult just to make people subscribe instead, it may work for some.  For others, though, it just makes them angry.  When I get into a mess with this stuff for a client, I put it on the bill as a line item, so they know it did not take that long to configure the new computer--it took that long to get MS Office activated.

Just went through this same nightmare with MS Office 2016 activation.  This licensing paradigm is absurd.  Instead of purchasing new copies of Office 2016, I'll be bootlegging old copies of MS Office 2010 into all new computers.  I tried...

I see there are STILL people having this issue that I had to deal with quite a while back.  The way i get around this 100% of the time is create an outlook email address that is dedicated specifically to the machine you are working with.  I only work with Dells mostly so I setup an outlook account like this:  {mycompany}_{servicetagnumber}@outlook.com.  This way, no matter what happens to the computer, you will always have the email associated with the machine and will have no issue reinstalling going forward.  I had to do this because of the limited number of licenses per account issue.  But i find this route to be the only way to ensure i don't lose the license in limbo as the service tag never changes per cpu.

This should work with single clients as well...

Just a suggestion...

best regards,

That's the way I do it too except i use fwds at the clients own domain. It's Giant PITA but were not given much choice right now. I think it's gonna take some kind of lawsuit to stop them from forcing this down everyone throat.