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I just bought and installed the stand-alone Microsoft Office 2024 (Home & Business edition, 64-bit) after using Microsoft Office 2021 since it came out several years ago. I was expecting my Office files I open in Excel, Word, and PowerPoint to open in Office 2024 tonight, but they're still opening in the Office 2021 apps (and it's not just a matter of 2024 still carrying 2021 logos because none of the features new to 2024 are there; it's just the same layout as always).
I can't even find any .exe files in my Program Files → Microsoft Office → Office16 folder. Everything is still intact in the Microsoft Office 15 folder, but that "Office16" folder has hardly anything in it, and definitely nothing that looks like it could launch an app. I am reasonably sure that my computer isn't the issue: I'm running Windows 11 Pro on an MSI Titan with three SSD cards and 64 Gb of RAM. I've rebooted my computer twice, just in case it was one of those Microsoft things about installations not completing until the reboot, but that didn't help. So what's going on? Did I just pay $250 plus tax for vaporware?
***Moved from Microsoft 365 and Office / Other / For business / Other***
Processes in Microsoft 365 for setting up Office apps, redeeming product keys, and activating licenses.
Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.
if we need to format the local disk just to get 2024 version working sorry but that is absurd ! Although I unistall the 2021 version and install the 2024 one it keeps reverting to 2021 ! If somebody can help he is more than welcome !
It is fixed! Wish I knew what happened to fix it though. Here is my history...
Have a 2 year old laptop with Office Home and Business 2021. I bought a new desktop and never installed 2021. I signed in to my MS account on the new desktop and bought Office Home and Business 2024, downloaded and installed it. Somehow, it always opened as 2021.
I spent about 7 hours on chat and phone calls and never could get a fix. I've installed, uninstalled, deleted registry, deleted keys via the cscript command, tried different install versions, even offline version. It never would get fixed. The last agent after working with me for 3 hours said he would escalate to the Office Team because he felt there must be a bug in the system. He said they would contact me with a fix. I was never contacted.
In the meantime about a week had passed, I ordered a new 2TB SSD for my desktop. It arrived. I cloned the 1 TB SSD that came with the desktop and switched the BIOS to boot from the new SSD. When I opened Word it showed up as 2024! As did all the other Office apps! I doubt the new cloned drive fixed it. I gut feel believe the Office Team found the bug which may have been some kind of issue with the licenses in my MS account and fixed it. Who knows? Bottom line, it is working.
Except I didn't have the desktop version of Outlook that was supposed to be included in this package. Another hour with MS Help and I got that resolved. I tried to use the "new" Outlook that was installed initially but it is useless.
Even if you uninstall 2021 it still shows 2021 in the Product Information Box
Open WORD go to File/Account and in the top right select the SWITCH LICENSE box. Then select MICROSOFT HOME AND BUSINESS 2024.
I tried that multiple times with the same result - it changes the open app to the 2024 version and I feel like it is fixed. But when I close it down and open it again, it reverts back to the 2021 version.
Before anyone does that, we need a Microsoft mod to verify this solution.
For more on the script, see https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/office/volume-license-activation/tools-to-manage-volume-activation-of-office. The article states that the script is primarily for volume license versions of Office.
They haven't responded to this thread once in nearly a month? What makes you think they're going to respond now?