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
    2020-07-23T16:33:27+00:00

    The reason is not that signing out 'deactivates' Office as you were required to do previously.  You no longer need to 'deactivate' Office you can have as many instances of Office as you desire but you can only be signed into 5 instance of Office at the same time.  See this Article How Sign in Works

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  2. Stefan Blom 353.7K Reputation points MVP Volunteer Moderator
    2020-07-23T15:54:14+00:00

    Microsoft has confirmed that subscription versions now require users to be signed in all the time. See this overview:

    https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/how-sign-in-works-in-microsoft-365-1d646e83-1585-4278-8daf-d4a2cc0905e0#ID0EABAAA=signinmsa 

    EDIT: As long as you choose to stay signed in, you should be able to disconnect from the internet. (The usual limitation that Office must contact the Microsoft servers once per month to verify your subscription does apply.)

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  3. Anonymous
    2020-07-19T14:18:25+00:00

    He didn't say, I didn't ask. I actually have a slightly older version

    Microsoft® Word for Microsoft 365 MSO (16.0.13001.20266) 32-bit

    Version 2006 (Build 13001.20266 Click-to-Run)

    I have no idea when it started, since I hadn't bothered to log out for a long time before testing your issue.

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  4. Anonymous
    2020-07-19T08:51:53+00:00

    Thanks for looking into it. Just curious, did your friend have all the same versions of of the 365 subscription? With me it only happened after I updated it. My current version is:

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  5. Stefan Blom 353.7K Reputation points MVP Volunteer Moderator
    2020-07-18T19:11:41+00:00

    Only Microsoft will be able to tell.

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