Updating office and getting an error message (Office for Windows)

The Repair feature fixed it immediately.  And NOW it wants a product key.  I have 5 days to enter it. MS office 365 was already installed on this computer when I bought it so I have NO IDEA where the product key is.  Arrrgggghhhh.  I don't suppose there is a way to retrieve it out of the system files? 

Preinstalled versions of Office are usually trial versions. Unless the retailer explicitly said that you purchased a full version, a trial version is what you have. 

The issue with that for me is simple. As a student I received a fully registered, working version of Microsoft Office. Everything was peachy up until yesterday for me. Windows tried to update Microsoft Office Professional Plus 2016 but it it gave me the WINWORD.EXE error.

So that's ****. What do I do after that? I follow Dave's post up top.

"Hi Cindy

This seems to be a recurring problem this week for many users, follow these steps to perform a full repair of your Office installation . . .

Open Control Panel - Programs and Features

Click Microsoft Office in the list of installed applications

At the top, click 'Change'

On the resulting dialog, click 'Repair' - choose the Online Repair, it is a comprehensive fix

That should fix any issues with your Office Installation . . ." - DaveM121

I follow all the steps. Seems like things are going alright, although one of my disks are being gangf***ed by Microsoft's installation wizards. At 100% capacity. Yikes. (The screams of my C Drive still haunt me. They should really take some priorities to fix that.)

After that I make it to this window.

This is where a multibillion-dollar corporation lies through their teeth at its userbase. Nice. I'm starting to see why Anonimous5 became so annoyed; I wasn't "all set". Not in the slightest. Because when I open up Office again AND sign in with my Microsoft account, I get......This. My mind is blown. They told me that if I signed in I'd get full access! I had Office and then I didn't. I'm no computer genius, but how hard would it have been to transfer the license of the old version to the new one? Surely people here would get the gist of what I'm saying. So now I have to PAY MONEY for something that Microsoft decided was A-OKAY beforehand.

I refuse to throttle my drives getting this monster reinstalled. This is where I ask for some sort of assistance getting the full version back. Stefan, I know you don't work at Microsoft so I am not upset at you at all. You are doing what you can to help. Do you know of any way I can get the license key for my student version of Microsoft Office so that I don't have to pay for something that was already mine to start with? 

This Office nonsense comes across as thievery to me.

Un-f----believable.  

I set office to NOT update, and it actually worked for a while.

Then windows pushed a system update, and IT BROKE OFFICE AGAIN!!!

And I selected the repair option, and that didn't even work, it uninstalled it!

So I've REINSTALLED it for the 10 or 12th or 15th time.

You're burning out my flash drive with huge downloads.

If you have a question about using Word, you should start a new thread in this forum and ask your question.

Why do MS sabotage their own programs? But I am almost sure that there is a huge department within MS with maybe 500+ programmers whose job is just to find ways to annoy customers.. I have the same problem... Outlook worked fine for years and today... Bingo... The problem rears its ugly face. Name of that department? Microsoft Let's F those who bought our products Department!

Thank you so much!  This fixed my problem, you saved my paper! I appreciate it!