Cannot activate Office Apps with High Sierra

Anonymous
2024-10-02T16:36:17+00:00

I have deleted everything and re-installed High Sierra on an old Macbook Pro. I have an Office 365 account and downloaded and installed Office (version 16.43). When first trying to use any of the Apps (Word, for example), I get a welcome page telling me all the great things I can get and then a window to enter in my Microsoft account email address. I then get a blank window where, when logging in to my account from a browser), I would need to enter my password. The blank screen never changes. Having done a clean install of the OS, there shouldn’t be any remaining bits of Microsoft licence.

Various web pages give conflicting advice about whether or not Office can still be used, albeit without support, or not with High Sierra. Can anyone give me the latest firm evidence about the situation and, if it is possible, suggestions as to how I can activate Office 365?

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

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  1. Anonymous
    2025-01-17T14:09:30+00:00

    Hello,

    A great great thank you rafaelfonte22!

    Your guide was exactly what I hoped to find after getting so much "it is not possible" answers.

    It worked perfectly and I can now use office apps on my old 2011 macbook air that still works flawlessly.

    It took me a few tries to accommodate to mitmproxy interface an modify the response in the 30s (or so) timeframe, but as soon as I was warmed up it worked without any hiccups.

    Thanks again you saved another old mac!

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  2. Anonymous
    2024-12-30T08:34:05+00:00

    Rafael!

    Thank you very much for taking the time and trouble to explain this. I intend to try your process out as soon as I feel brave enough. The Microsoft people were friendly and helpful, it must be said, but this is a fairly major systemic oversight! Too many of their technical designers probably don’t understand that many of us use obsolete operating systems and hardware.

    Best wishes for 2024.

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  3. Anonymous
    2024-12-29T13:02:53+00:00

    Hi Rafael,
    You are an absolute legend, a thousand thanks for this guide. I was able to do it successfully on 2 old High Sierra iMacs.

    It took me 1-2 minutes to understand what exactly did what in mitmproxy but after that it was a breeze.

    Can't thank you enough

    wish you all a happy new year

    Best Regards

    Lukas

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  4. Anonymous
    2024-12-24T07:11:27+00:00

    Hi Rafael, very helpful of you. I am away for a month from the location where my High Sierra iMac is located so I don't think I will be able to try remotely but I will definitely try it when I return, in the meantime I have my Macbook (M1 - Sonoma 14.7.2) with me not sure if I could try on it or a friend has an older Macbook (Monterey 12.7.6). I will give it a go in the next 3-4 days. Best wishes for the festive season and for a happy and prosperous New Year. Jean-Luc

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  5. Anonymous
    2024-12-24T06:32:28+00:00

    I just updated the gist once more, with a WIP version of an alternate method that trades off most of the fiddling with mitmproxy for some automated steps, assuming that you can run some simple MacOS Terminal commands. It basically uses a mitmproxy addon to help you with the workaround. I'll come back to it later to add some details:

    https://gist.github.com/rafaelfonte/56b9fb80daed8c586433e82859ccb876#alternate-method---mitmproxy-addon-wip

    It assumes that you have Firefox installed to get the URL you should browse to quickly, but even without it you should be able to use it. The main benefit from it is that it does the auth login redirect automatically for you once you have the Auth code URL at hand - whereas in the original method you are required to apply the changes manually and within a time limit, which can be challenging.

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