Office Home and Student 2019 for Mac not functioning anymore as of today: Forced to buy a new license??? Unethical!!!

Anonymous
2023-11-20T15:39:33+00:00

Hi,

As of this morning I have found my legal/registered Microsoft Office Home and Student 2019 (1 Mac) applications (Excel, Word, Powerpoint) do not function properly...

I have searched for similar problems on Microsoft community (found some & then applied all!). Also called "microsoft support" 3 times to look for an answer/solution.

As recommended, after all "Office app removals" (@Apple and Microsoft web sites)+ "license removal tool running" + "Re-installing of Office 2019", they still do not work/function. After the Office package re-install when I try to open an app it says "No license found for my account", although my purchase of Office 2019 can be seen in Microsoft Account (i.e. MS knows that I have legally bought it several years ago)...

Last support center guy told me that "Office 2019 support of MS ended as of Oct'23 -p.s. I confirmed it later-" recommended me "to buy a new license"!... I had bought my license for "LIFETIME". Now, they say "BUY A NEW ONE, just after 3 years!", adding that there is no other address that I can tell about this problem/my complaint (p.s. Live Chat did not work either today)...

Don't want to say bad words to Microsoft after such an ETHICALLY INCORRECT response; so any help of community much appreciated... Thanks.

Biltor Ulucay

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

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Jim G 134.1K Reputation points MVP
2023-11-22T19:06:30+00:00

I think the problem results from AutoUpdate installing a wrong version of Office for your license. You would have to remove the wrong version first:

Uninstall Office for Mac - Microsoft Support

Then, install the correct version, which is 16.78.3 which you can download from this link

Office suite (with Teams)

Please use the Help menu and choose Check for Updates. In AutoUpdate uncheck the box to automatically keep office up to date. 16.78.3 is the final version of Office 2019.

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  1. Anonymous
    2024-04-02T19:43:53+00:00

    Same, there is no way I have the time to convert all my excel sheets to numbers. I have no idea how to even use it. This should not be allowed but who is going to stop them.

    Obviously, not unhappy customers.

    Sue

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  2. Anonymous
    2024-04-02T19:41:59+00:00

    Michael,

    I have been able to open my excel worksheets but they are dragging, and very frustrating trying to use them. I try to perform an update, and although it doesn’t work, I am able to continue doing work on them but it’s very annoying. I checked with Apple at the store and he suggested I bring my computer in to see if my problem is memory but I did some research and my computer is not low on memory so it should not be a problem. This all started abruptly when I got the first message that I could not do my update. At that time it seemed people were complaining that Microsoft Office was not working. It lasted for days, then it started to work again. I feel they turned something on to force everyone to think they needed to purchase 365. I almost got sucked in to doing it, but Apple Store said no way should you be forced to do so, nor buy another software package for $150. So, I am still at a standstill of what to do and just plugging along. I looked into Numbers but no way I am going to convert all my doc’s on to it. Store said it would not be the same. So sorry, no answer for you yet.

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  3. Anonymous
    2024-04-02T00:29:18+00:00

    I tried to start using Numbers but gave up. I have so much invested on excel the task seemed daunting and I went back to using Office. It seems it is working correctly now, go figure…what was that about?

    Since it worked for you Susan, I said, what the hell, and tried it again. Unfortunately, it told me I had to use Office 365 as you can see from the attachment. I hope you continue to be able to use Office 2019.

    Did you do anything that might have made it possible to use Office 2019 again? I am willing to try almost anything at this point.

    Regards,

    ..michael..

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  4. Anonymous
    2024-04-01T23:47:26+00:00

    Were you able to convert your Excel sheet information to Numbers? I was having a hard time. I am not familiar with Numbers at all.

    Thanks,

    I was able to convert most of the Excel sheet to Numbers but Numbers does not have as robust a library of functions as Excel so I had to do some extra work sometimes.

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