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
    2020-04-04T01:25:47+00:00

    The "free office 365" license that "comes with" a computer is a relatively new innovation. Only about a year, or so.

    .

    The way it generally works is you will find an "Office" logo in the start menu. When you click on it you will be prompted for an email account. It will default to the Windows logon account, so you would have to change it to your personal email account.  When you supply the email account and click OK it will activate a 1 yr Office 365 Personal subscription on top of your current Office 365 subscription.  If you happen to have 365 Home, it will convert it to 365 Personal with the old expire date extended by a year.  If you want/need to go back to 365 Home you will have to buy another 365 Home subscription (either directly from MS or from another store).  When you activate that key your subscription will be changed back to 365 Home with an expire date 2years plus the current remaining fraction.

    Yes, it is a little convoluted, but what do you expect from MS

    Take a look at this article from MS

    https://support.office.com/en-us/article/activate-office-5bd38f38-db92-448b-a982-ad170b1e187e#bkmk\_afolb

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  2. Anonymous
    2020-04-03T21:02:40+00:00

    Thankyou, yes i have read this too but there doesnt seem to be an activate office button anywhere!

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  3. Anonymous
    2020-04-03T20:49:36+00:00

    From the article i linked:

    >>

    Activate an Office purchase or offer that's included on a new Windows 10 device

    A digital Office product key is transmitted to your PC, so you won't need or receive a printed product key. You activate Office by selecting the Activate Office button. Be sure to activate Office as soon possible. The offer will expire 180 days after you activate Windows.

    >>

    Also see https://support.office.com/article/activate-an-...

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  4. Anonymous
    2020-04-03T18:41:03+00:00

    Michelle,  You may not be able to activate the free version of Office 365 on your computer as it came with your daughters computer.  But it may activate.   Signing into the Office Account often sorts activation issues:  https://account.microsoft.com/services/ 

    Also: If you can open an App such as Word>Click on File>Account>On this page it will show if Office is activated or there may be an Activation Wizard.

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  5. Anonymous
    2020-04-03T18:07:41+00:00

    I appreciate your help but i have read all this. Its not what i am trying to do. Maybe i am not being very clear :-(

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