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I have purchased a laptop for my daughter which came with office 365 personal free for 1 year. She doesnt need this as gets its free at school. She has setup her own Microsoft account on it and i have also logged into it with my Microsoft account and then installed office which i thought would activate the year and add it to my existing subscription. At no point have we ever had the message to ‘activate office’. Her account just shows her school office and mine shows my office subscription with no date extension. How do i do this please its driving me bonkers!
Processes in Microsoft 365 for setting up Office apps, redeeming product keys, and activating licenses.
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Sorry i don’t understand why this has screwed it up? I am trying to apply the free year to my own account so surely i need to log in as me?
So by giving my daughter her own Microsoft account, i have also inadvertently activated office, even though it never gave me the option to ‘activate’ anything? And if that is the case, then why when i log into her Microsoft account does it only show her school office is running, nothing about 365 personal? I am still not convinced its active because its not showing on any account.
You screwed up when you used your MS Account and installed your version of Office. Your only recourse would be to reset the PC to factory state and hope that that restore includes the 'free' 365 Personal. And If your are in the US that might not be the case (judging by past experience)
The activation part is done automatically in the background the first time the icon is used. If you have a Windows login ID setup the license is associated to that ID. If you use a "local" Windows ID to log in, and are not already logged in to Hotmail/Exchange/Microsoft for some other reason, you will be prompted to provide an account to associate the license to
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The problem is the builders, and MS, fail to adequately explain how this new "free" Office subscription works. People who are used to the "old" way expect to find a Product Key There is too much automagic-ation going on in the background.
Thankyou, yes i have clicked on the office icon. It loads my office account but there is only the option to ‘install’ not to activate. I have tried installing and it does this fine but the subscription is still not showing as extended.
I find this activation thing astounding. It seems to be just a big advert to sell the device and then you cant actually utilise the years subscription! There must be lots of people who have this issue, not just me!