Cannot activate Office Apps with High Sierra

Thank you so much for the Libre Office idea, I downloaded version 7.4, a slightly newer one, and it works on my Mac. High Sierra. I guess that is what I am going to have to do, going forward. It will be a learning curve, I have used Word since it first came out in the late 80s, and it's a shame I need to change now, but if my legitimate copy of Office no longer authenticates, I have no choice.

However, having spent so much money on perpetual licenses in the past dictates that I cannot just leave a computer behind that still works fine, and I still have working copies of Adobe Creative Suite on it I bought before everything went to a subscription. I love it and want to keep using it, so older OS is the way to do it.

In this day and age when we are constantly being exhorted to avoid waste, protect the environment and conserve resources, it is unforgivable for companies like Microsoft and Apple to force us to abandon perfectly serviceable technology, both hardware and software. I am not expecting life-time support (not that there seems to be much support anyway), accept limitations and recognise that bells and whistles aren’t there but it is not asking much for companies to refrain from deliberately sabotaging working items. Yes, we expect that our 10-year old car will not work as well as the latest model and that it might become increasingly difficult to maintain but we don’t expect the manufacturer to destroy its electronics to force us to buy a new vehicle.

Hi Ryan,

 I can log into my Microsoft account without any problems from a browser, email or Onedrive. The Office version I have downloaded is 16.43 (I have tried 16.41 as well). The download and installation process seems to go perfectly. However, when first opening any App, I get the welcome screen and then a screen to enter my account ID. That seems to be accepted but then, when I expected to enter in my password, there is just a blank screen that doesn’t change. I have an Office 365 subscription and my internet connection is good. High Sierra 10:13.6 is, I know, old but my Macbook Pro is also old and cannot take later Mac Operating Systems. It seems a shame to have a laptop that is perfectly serviceable but cannot be used for Office apps.

Hi guys,

I also went through the massive trouble of attempting to install Office in a High Sierra machine just recently. After a lot of back-and-forth, looking for as much info as I could gather from forums like this, I finally got a procedure that allowed me to do it - however, it takes a lot of steps to get there as it basically requires you to man-in-the-middle the whole thing to get an auth code generated and replied back to the Office App. Also, it worked to get all apps authenticated except for MS Teams.

I don't provide any guarantees that this will work for you. If you want to try it, make sure that you know what you're doing, and try it at your own risk: https://gist.github.com/rafaelfonte/56b9fb80daed8c586433e82859ccb876

This procedure involves intercepting the authentication window request url that is called just before the page goes blank with a local proxy tool, going to that URL in your browser, copying the auth code URL and then forcing the authentication window to that URL via a HTTP redirect. Still, a lot more hassle than what should at all be expected, just to overcome limitations from software that is poorly maintained by Microsoft when it comes to supporting users on legacy platforms that were working fine just a few years prior.

Also, I haven't taken any screen captures of URLs or such while doing it. What's documented there comes out of memory alone. I might come back to it later to fill in a few more details in the future.

(EDIT: Just reviewed the doc to make it easier to follow and made a few corrections to make it more clear).

I am also having the exact same problem. Is there an answer to this, or are we now no longer able to use Office programs with Mac OS 10.13.6?

Thanks FFS MS! You put into words exactly what I was feeling about this. Thanks for adding that excellent addition. I am betting more people will become fed up with paying for the same software over and over again. The timed kill switch apparently programmed into perpetual licenses really bothers me.