Install Office 2016 OEM without Live account

An interesting development. I now absolutely refuse to supply oem/retail versions of Office 2016. I have become very good at convincing my many small clients to use Open or Libre office along with eM Client for email. But i have about 10 sealed packs of old stock "Home and Office 2013" packs for the odd requirement. So today I needed to use one and I broke the plastic, installed the product and tried to activate. I got "This product has already been activated". Now this is an item that was purchased from an authorised Microsoft channel partner and leftover stock from a purchase of 50 units, the previous 40 of which activated without a hitch. I cracked open a second pack and had exactly the same problem. So I tried the phone activation option and what do I see first: "Telephone Activation is no longer supported for your product"

I knew the number so I dialed it anyway and tried to activate the product. After typing in all the numbers I was told that the product could not be verified and was transferred to a person. I asked how it was possible a sealed pack could have been activated already to which he answered that he saw no problem with the product and was able to give me a code that allowed the activation to proceed. He said he was unable to comment on my issue as he was merely following a procedure.

Is Microsoft trying to make things difficult with the last line of Product Key products? No telephone activation support and bogus "already activated" messages...

Yes, MS is doing everything it can to "encourage" users to "upgrade" <sneer> to Office 365.  Lets take your issues in reverse order.

The no phone activation "error" is a "known issue" that MS is doing nothing, or at least the absolute minimum about. Phone activation is allowed, you just need to know the secret. Here it is:

2017 01 20- "Telephone activation is no longer supported for your product" error when activating Office

MS oops'd, and just hasn't bothered to fix the problem in much too long.  A MS staffer provided an "explanation" and a link (in green) to a page with a link to get the phone number for your specific geographic location

<snip https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/msoffice/forum/msoffice_install-mso_win10/how-to-reinstall-office-home-and-student-2007/fcd910a6-c4cf-4739-9cf2-1dc5b39e7e53?msgId=725b5bc7-f577-4366-9a33-3ba29d67f3dd >

Michelle V [MSFT]

We apologize for this inconvenience. We are currently fixing this bug in our Office products. In the meantime, you can call the numbers for your specific country/region listed in this article (https://support.office.com/en-us/article/-Telephone-activation-is-no-longer-supported-for-your-product-error-when-activating-Office-9b016cd2-0811-4cb3-b896-5a6a13177713?ui=en-US&rs=en-US&ad=US).

Please also note that this issue impacts Office non-subscribers only—those who purchased the product as a one-time purchase. For more information, see What's the difference between Office 365 and Office 2016?

If this doesn't solve the issue, please contact our support agents linked from the bottom of the same article.

Again, we apologize for this issue. We are working to get this resolved quickly and will update this thread once the fix is available.

Thanks,

Michelle V.

Office Team

</snip>

Pre-Used "new" product keys:

This is totally a personal, unofficial, unsupported opinion. I think there is a problem in the Office Product Key supply chain AT MS! The less serious option is that someone is stealing new product keys directly from MS. More serious would be that someone external to MS has partially broken the Office Product Key generation algorithm and can generate a limited number of keys. 

When the problem was first being reported on the forum, just after 2016 was released I thought the problem was theft at a computer builder. Then it spread to multiple builders and now multiple Office versions.  Here are some links I collected about the issue:

Stolen Product Keys in Supply Chain - **Activating Office 2016 OEM license**(Dell?) Problem

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/office/forum/office_2016-office_install/activating-office-2016-oem-license/bf55e024-1d6c-4522-bf2c-c9e57f153275   4 me too’s, DELL

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/office/forum/office_2016-office_install/office-2016-bad-product-key/74d463e8-f052-46aa-9738-713a8764e694 DELL  (not yet resolved in this question)

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/msoffice/forum/msoffice_install-mso_win10/product-key-in-use/65728210-0050-47f5-921d-8048606e2fab

• new OEM key already used, Oct 2016

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/office/forum/office_365hp-office_account/office-365-doesnt-recognize-my-microsoft-account/09e14bb1-bfcd-452b-8de7-1b7fe19e83c9

• 124 “ME TOO’S!” - account not recognized

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/office/forum/office_2016-office_install/login-says-emailphone-number-doesnt-match-software/90c3ce34-c8fc-44c8-91b2-d7bd5ea1ca22 3 “me too’s” in the first few hours! - account not recognized

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/office/forum/office_365hp-office_account/product-key-valid-but-redeemed-with-a-different/e73ddb43-df0d-4e8e-83a6-5b738fcbd94c ASUS

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/office/forum/office_2016-office_install/office-2016-activation-key-already-in-use/68931ba9-53ef-46d0-ab1a-4fd7457dda2d

• already activated with unknown hotmail

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/office/forum/office_2013_release-office_install/licensing-issue-with-mix-of-office-2013-oem-volume/ed90445a-af5b-4ffa-acaf-9a31038fc8c3 (Dell OEM Pro)

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/office/forum/office_2013_release-office_account/i-made-a-typo-in-the-email-address-i-entered-when/bf989b99-6d74-4065-881a-f10c083dd9e7 made typo in email during activation

Product Key Valid but redeemed with a different account-ASUS EE book 205TA Product key stolen on supply chain - Atom

Several people have reported that when they try to activate brand new Office product keys they get a message that it has already been activated by a different email account. MS is providing no relieve for this problem. A few people have been able to convince DELL to provide replacement product keys.

So far this problem has been reported by buyers of licenses from DELL and Best Buy, Lenovo, Asus (OEM H&S)

• Here are 2 interesting perspectives on the issue
• <Snip https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/office/forum/office_2016-office_install/install-office-2016-oem-without-live-account/139e1c25-86ae-49de-ab1a-3d8f03218fa9?page=8 >
• Jay 007 Man replied on Jan 7, 2016
• I can support this story. Two weeks ago, I received 3 Office 2016 licenses with 3 new dell business laptops. All 3 keys were already activated and added to another account. After talking with Microsoft, they even gave me the email address that the keys were registered under. Suffice to say, it was some random Gmail account that did not belong to any known user. Dell just shipped me 3 more license without question.

• ALeighS11 replied on Jan 7, 2016
• We bought 40 machines. I activated office on each one, no problem. Then I went in to set the laptops up for users, and they are not active again. I went on my live account, and ALL of the product codes are different than the product code cards I have been given. Someone has to be screwing things up in the MS database. I have the cards in MY hand that say what product code I put in... and then on my ms live accounts they are totally different. No way is Dell giving away so many “Used” codes. I think MS is screwing up on keeping track of what really has been used.
• </snip>

Mar 8 2016, There is a reported story that MS is claiming there is an alternate activation server working somewhere. But that does not seem to be the answer to the problems these people are reporting

http://www.computerworld.com/article/3041857/enterprise-applications/microsoft-goes-after-pirates-who-allegedly-activated-thousands-of-copies-of-windows-office.html#comments

This is a totally different problem. Sounds like someone selling a few (thousand) computers with “illegally” activate Windows and Office 2010, or Windows Server

https://torrentfreak.com/microsoft-sues-pirating-comcast-subscriber-160229/ - This link has a link to the full legal complaint submitted by MS (MS vs Comcast … PDF)

Yes and it is not limited to Dell supply. I purchased two retail Office 2016 packs about 4 months back, one of which was "Already Activated". The system tells you part of the email used for the activation and it was a random hotmail account. This was a SEALED retail pack - one of two purchased from a reputable store. Go figure....

I will simply NEVER purchase an office 2016 oem or retail pack again. And I have made it my business to migrate clients off 365 and away from MS Office. After an initial adjustment I am getting very good feedback from my clients. I just converted an International Trampoline Park chain to Libre and eM Client and they are loving the massive cost saving and users report an acceptable transition from MS Office/Outlook.

If you look again, my text identified 3 OEMS and one retail store.  What store did you buy your problem license from (so I can add it to the list)?

I am based in the United Arab Emirates and it was purchased from a consumer electronics chain store here called "Sharaf DG" so of little use to you:

https://uae.sharafdg.com/c/computing/storage/software/