Install Office 2016 OEM without Live account

Well it is time for me to reply. I just installed 25 Microsoft office 2016 home-business retail  packages. This should have taken me a few hours, but no, not with MS procedures of creating an online email account for each install. To make matters worse, after getting one email account set up, with email verification, the second one required the email plus a cell phone activation code. Ok, this had to be done of 24 installs, but guess what, it will only use the same cell phone twice, and requires you to use a different one after that. So here I am trying to get enough cell phone numbers to get the code for creating each account. This process of creating the accounts and verifying took longer than the install of all 25 packages would have taken in the past.

Like others, I created the accounts all at one time, then the next day I started the installs. Of the 25 installs, 7 of them said the account was spamming, and again required a cell phone to unblock the account. Then a few days later another one was flagged as spamming, and Microsoft shut down the usage of excel and word. Neither could open a file for editing or viewing until the account was unblocked. WHY?

I, like others have many customers out there with office installed, and right now I have about 20 customers, with up to 10 pc's that need the new office installed. I will not be upgrading to the new office for them unless MS stops the on line account creation. This is a waste of my time and a waste of my customers dollars to pay me to do something that is not necessary. Plus I see this as a huge problem in the future when MS shuts down the ability to open a file when they THINK the email account (which is not being used) is spamming. Once again waste of my time and cost to the customer.

Oh for the volume license route, I tried this for the last install. I contacted 3 partners, and none called me back after 2 months. I emailed, and phoned directly, with no response. This was no help, for I knew the volume license does not require the online activation,  I have state agencies and they get the volume license, and the installs are like in the old days.

Eddie:

As Ron B has already pointed out, (in theory) you can use a single email account to install 20-25 Office 2016 licenses, ie

**Office 2016 / 2013/365 Installation and Activation Guide & FAQ**with Pictures -Specifically says you can activate 25 licenses on a single ID

http://www.entaonline.com/banners/microsoft\_office/downloads/Office-Installation-and-Activation-Guide-2013.pdf

Note: if you do that, you MUST keep your own record of the **full product key,**and computer ID used for each machine.  You cannot depend on MS to provide that information for you later. You can NO LONGER "extract" the full product key from the computer.

Don't hold your breath waiting for MS to remove the requirement to associate the license with an email account. There are too many advantages for MS to maintain that relationship. The only way that will happen is if MANY really large customers move away from Office and tell MS that is the reason. But I don't expect it to happen because most large customers are "drinking the coolaid" and switching to 365 subscriptions.  In many places this changes office from a "capital" expense that has to be depreciated over several years, to a "current expense" that can written off of their taxes in full each year ...

So, if your customers do decide to "vote with their feet (and wallet)" by moving away from Office, make sure to contact MS every time and tell them why this is happening.