Extending Office 365 subscription on new PC

Anonymous
2020-04-03T16:55:43+00:00

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!

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

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  1. Anonymous
    2020-04-04T17:03:30+00:00

    OK, I (finally) just got a look at the current MS License Terms for Office 365.

    Yes, the 365 license terms no longer allow you the right to transfer the ownership of the subscription.  (on the other hand, the one time license terms still allow the right, MS has simply made the process almost impossible).

    The "owner" of the Office 365 subscription is not established by MS until activation is done. So it appears as far as MS is concerned you can give the "free" subscription to someone else before the activation. Unless the subscription is an OEM equivalent of 365 Personal (no mention of that kind of creature that I've seen so far) which the OEM has to partially activate to specifically associate the hardware to the license before it can be activated by the user, I don't see how MS can track the 365 subscription back to a specific hardware owner.

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  2. Anonymous
    2020-04-04T17:23:32+00:00

    "I don't see how MS can track the 365 subscription back to a specific hardware owner."  Not unless the subscription is somehow tied to the computer on which it is placed.  I only say this because the OP was having trouble activating the subscription.

    PS: "Unless the subscription is an OEM equivalent of 365 Personal"  Why do you say the subscription is not OEM the same as other versions of Office and other software?  The computer manufacturer will have paid Microsoft for the the licence as they do for Microsoft's other products, including Windows.

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  3. Anonymous
    2020-04-04T17:42:21+00:00

    Well interestingly she did mention OEM and was adamant that even adding the free year to my account wouldnt extend my subscription (ie would only be a year from now) and would only enable me to use it for the year on that particular device. 🤷��‍♀️

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  4. Anonymous
    2020-04-04T18:03:52+00:00

    Michelle, the problem is getting the subscription to work.  If you can get it work there is no reason why you shouldn't use it maybe Microsoft will be happy is at the end of the year you have found that you cannot do without it and pay for a further subscription. 

    PS: "would only enable me to use it for the year on that particular device"   I don't accept that.  If you were to activate it on your computer you would be able to install it on 5 other devices.

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