AppleCare+ MacBook Pro M1 board replacement nukes Microsoft Office Perpetual License

I've walked through this several times. You need to find a support rep with Microsoft that has the authority and experience to assist with this. They can and will issue a new key when provided with repair documentation, but only a limited number of support reps can do it.

Ugh! They've changed that, then. Your Office 2016 entry is how mine looks. I didn't expect to find a choice to deactivate it since I had already done that. It's also useless now that MS has turned off the activation servers for that version. Can't install and activate it even if I had a Mac old enough to run it on.

That's entirely ridiculous you can't reinstall 2019. You bought a perpetual license. If it isn't in use, there should be nothing preventing you from installing it again on any Mac you want. And where you are is how you control whether or not an activation is in use. The user has never been able to deactivate Office from within the app.

I can think of one other thing at the moment. Go into your user account at ~/Library/Group Containers/. You'll find a few folders in there related to Office. Part of that data is a file that tells Office you've already activated it. Make sure to save at least this folder if you're using Outlook:

/Users/<username>/Library/Group Containers/UBF8T346G9.Office/Outlook/Outlook 15 Profiles/Main Profile

Better though to initially save everything on an external drive. Then trash the MS folders out of the Group Containers folder and delete them. Now try reinstalling Office 2019. There will be no reference on your Mac it's been installed and activated and now may succeed.

We know how MS operate, it's recommending your best way forward now,

I repeat, a 3 year old Office on Monterey has limited forward life.

Start leasing.

When you enter your MS account online and look under Services & subscriptions, you should see Office 2019 listed as a purchased product. I'm presuming you already know this part.

Click the expansion arrow for the 2019 entry towards the right. It should have a choice to deactivate the suite. Do that and you should then be able to install Office 2019 again.

Rajesh Kanungo wrote:

Effort: I have already spent 3 hours with MS support and they haven't helped an iota. They refuse to reissue another key.

The genesis of the Problem: AppleCare replaced my motherboard. Thank you!!!

Restore progressed fine. Till I tried to reactivate my MS Office 2019 perpetual license.

Problem: MS license server thinks that either my previous board is holding one activation or there have been too many activations. So it will not let me activate on the new board.

The message is:

Key already used

The key associated with this account

and product has been activated on

another machine, or reactivated on this

machine too many times, please choose

another if available.

We have tried, several times: license removal tool, reinstalling MS Office. The activation key is considered used. There is no way to deactivate the use of the key from my office account login.

Any ideas?

Did you Restore from a back up, your user data?

Restore your Mac from a backup

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT203981

Microsoft Office 365 subscription you simply enter the email address you used when you extended the subscription with Microsoft.(?) does it apply...

If in doubt refer to the developers website, search: Support/Help/FAQ/known issues/compatibility/updates

https://support.microsoft.com/

Microsoft Corporation/Customer service

1 (800) 642-7676

Rajesh Kanungo wrote:

You have to buy a new license. Having bought 2 perpetual licenses and having both of them unusable is probably a record.

No you don't. Contact Microsoft. They allow transfer to a new computer.

Maybe the Microsoft Product Help Communities would be a good place to ask.

Your Microsoft license is still "in perpetuity". You simply have to use it on the correct OS version; the one it was purchased for; correct bit structure and all that tech stuff.

You can use said license on the correct OS for as long as you live as long as you follow the terms and conditions of the license you agreed to at time of purchase and first use.

This has been Microsoft's official position, often cited and published, since they introduced the Activation requirement.

That 2019 will soon be obsolete.

It works out about the same cost if you go for monthly 365 and you can use it on your iDevices too. I have it on 2 macs 3 iphones and an ipad for £7 a month.

If we could live without Office I might suggest an alternative but they have us by the wotsits.

LD150 wrote:

I wonder why MS support didn't think of that.

I think they may have. FWIW, I've never had an issue with Microsoft Licensing and switching platform where my product needs to be licensed.

This happens when developers get too OCD about pirating. I have a third party app that I use and the developer is absolutely paranoid about piracy. The licensing procedure is medieval and often confuses the heck out of his clients.