Why does signing out suddenly de-activate office?

Anonymous
2020-07-16T15:23:12+00:00

I have office 365. I used to be able to sign out of an office application and the application still worked. I recently made the mistake of updating the office application where Office 365 is now Microsoft 365. It now seems I HAVE to sign in and stay signed in on my own computer where I downloaded and installed my office products to keep using MS Office. When I sign out, the office product deactivates. I don't want to be signed in to use the product that I paid for. It now means that everyone in my family who use the same computer also use my Office account with my name on each office application. Why did this policy change and can we get the previous policy back?

At https://www.reddit.com/r/Office365/comments/fyzfe6/how_to_logout_from_office_365_word_without/ a user commented:

"Yes you used to be able to sign out of Office 365 and it would still stay activated based on the original MS account that has the Office 365 subscription on it... BUT NOW since they changed the name to Microsoft 365 the NEW installers/program are different and if you sign out then it will deactivate Office and make you sign back in... if you updated from an older install then it still seems to let you log out even with the newest updates... but if you did an Online repair then you will be forced to stay signed in... once signed in with a valid subscription account you can sign in with any another microsoft account instead and it will keep the activation still.."

Please revert this manner of using Office products that have been paid for.

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

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  1. Anonymous
    2020-07-24T11:21:07+00:00

    But it is not really the point whether you exceed it or not. I only have a subscription for one device. I am now forced by MS to continually stay signed in, but what if I don't want to and want to manually sign-out of office? I don't use many of the online features and would not care if they are gone, I just want to use Word to write what I need to and save it locally. Why sign-out? well maybe I don't enjoy my account being active all the time and my wife uses our same device and is now forced to look at my name and account plastered on Word to use it (yes, it is a minor inconvenience, but still annoying). There really is no reason for MS to keep you signed-in other then acquiring information on you (is my only guess), because they already have my money and know which device it is installed on as you need to install it while online (so it's not to check if you're using Office within your license limitation as they are able to check when installing).

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  2. Anonymous
    2020-07-24T07:24:02+00:00

    Most people will not notice because they do not exceed the 5 devices limitation.  Office will not automatically sign out/deactivate an installation unless the user has Office installed on more than 5 devices.

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  3. Anonymous
    2020-07-24T06:47:11+00:00

    I only have one ....

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  4. Anonymous
    2020-07-24T04:57:55+00:00

    Rohn, it is not that new.  I  gave you a link to that article months ago.  It only signs you out 'deactivates' installations if you have more than 5.

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  5. Anonymous
    2020-07-23T21:33:40+00:00

    Fair enough.

    .

    They don't pay enough inhouse testers, and apparently they don't have enough "insider" crash test dummies, so MS is testing this change in production to see how much feedback they get.  It makes the consipracy nut in me perk up and wander what additional information signing in provides their spyware, pardon me, "telemetry".  Just saying ... <g>

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    To the other people who have encountered this "new & (dis)improved" "feature", you should submit feedback to MS expressing your rapturous joy at the "improvement".  I sent in a "frowny face" since my Win10 Feedback Hub <cr>applet has not worked for months ... so I can't share a link to my feedback.

    .

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