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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.
Processes in Microsoft 365 for setting up Office apps, redeeming product keys, and activating licenses.
Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.
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.
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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Yes, it is a requirement to be signed in, for Office programs to remain activated. See my previous screen shot from the article that we have been discussing here.
Apparently, you don't have to be connected to the internet all the time, though.
Sorry for my last post which I deleted wrong link. This is what Microsoft says about>Is internet access required for Office 365?
Internet access is required to install and activate all the latest releases of apps and services included in all Microsoft 365 subscription plans. Note that if you are an existing subscriber, you do not need to reinstall or purchase another subscription.
For Microsoft 365 plans, Internet access is also needed to manage your subscription account, for example to install apps on other PCs or to change billing options. Internet access is also required to access documents stored on OneDrive, unless you install the OneDrive desktop app.
You should also connect to the Internet regularly to keep your version of Microsoft 365 up to date and to benefit from automatic upgrades. If you do not connect to the Internet at least every 31 days, your apps will go into reduced functionality mode, which means that you can view or print your documents but cannot edit the documents or create new ones. To reactivate your apps, simply reconnect to the Internet.
You do not need to be connected to the Internet to use Office apps, such as Word, Excel, and PowerPoint, because the apps are fully installed on your computer.