Microsoft Office 2011 needs key after full Time Machine Restore

It's probably too late for this to help, but maybe going forward, you will do what I do for all Microsoft and Adobe (and other) products that require keys to be entered, which is to store the keys right in the Applications folder in a text or RTF file, along with the program they might be needed for.

Your key is indeed stored in a preference file in your user account, but it's a very long hash value that cannot be translated by the user back to the original key.

If you can, call someone back at home and have them read the key from the disk jacket to you. Otherwise, you'll have to contact MS, as mentioned earlier.

Office 2011 is a lot more sneaky about how it verifies the license. In this case it not only checks the serial number of the Mac, but also the Volume UUID of the volume it is being installed on. As you have restored it to a different drive that volume has a different UUID and hence the license file that was restored does not match your previous configuration.

You would have the same problem if you put the original unaltered drive in to a different Mac because then even though the volume UUID would be unchanged the serial number of the Mac logic board would be different.

Office 2008 used to merely check for a valid OfficePID.plist file in /Applications/Microsoft Office 2008/Office/OfficePID.plist and that it contained a valid serial number and did not check this against the hardware for changes.

Your only recourse is to either go back to the original drive in the original Mac, or re-enter the serial number which will then be re-verified against Microsoft's product activation servers and then re-encoded and stored on your Mac including the encoded values for the Mac serial number and volume UUID.

This is why I loath product activation. Adobe are even worse, if you forget to deactivate your originally installation first they can refuse to let you activate the new install. Of course if your computer gets stolen or dies how are you supposed to do this?

Instead of the drama "and am off on a new venture, seemingly as difficult as the first one." why not just click on File > Help in any of your Office products. The product key is there, prominently displayed. At least it is in my version of Office.

Unfortunately, that doesn't work. If you choose Word > About Word, it does indeed show you a Product ID. But that's just a number generated for you to use for support calls when MS asks for that ID. The Product Key is a completely different strings of letters and numbers for activating the product.

OK,

You will not get the Intallation code from your computer, quit wasting your time, get back on the phone and STAY THERE UNTIL YOU GET A HUMAN, MS can get you the code but if you give up because it is not easy, you will fail. Consider it the cost of not writing the code down and keeping it handy.

If that is too much work for you, buy another copy of Office.

Sorry I could not help you. All I can say is that I have done what you are attempting to do dozens of times. And regardless whether or not you believe me, it is a relatively simple thing to get done. Good luck in your quest.

Thats a new one, I have never heard of MS refusing to activate a product before, and I know Apple can't activate it. (I never advised you to shout, just to be persistent), My comment remains the same, either persuade MS to activate or buy another license, or have someone with access to the disc take a picture of the code and send it to you.

I would take the opportunity to get out of MS's clutches once and for all, but that's just me, and some free alternatives to Office speaking.

Without the product key (which is on sticker of the sleeve the DVD comes in), you're stuck. MS will help you activate the product over the phone if it won't let you enable it with the key, but either way, you must have that key because they will ask for that.

I have had to do that a couple of times with Office 2011 because I had activated it I don't know how many times testing various versions of OS X since Office 2011 came out. Somewhere along the lines, I ran out of activations (whatever their secret maximum number is). They won't reset that server count either, even if you can prove you purchased it.

What you have to do then is first read off your product key to them over the phone. They then ask some questions to confirm you are the person who registered the software. Then you go through a long process of manually activating the software with very long set of numbers you read to them, and they read back different confirmation numbers you fill into open text fields.