Solved MS Office 2016 Activation

When my daughter started college, the school allowed them to download and install Office 2016 on their computers. She installed a file called Office_Professional_Plus_2016_MAK_x64.exe on both a laptop and our home desktop. Both activated and have been updating just fine. I'm planning on giving a away the laptop and wanted to remove any personal data so I wiped the drive and did a clean install of Win10 which activated just fine. I then tried to reinstall Office 2016 using the installation file previously used and it now says my product key is invalid. I checked with the school and they said they no longer support Office 2016 and have switched to Office 365. Other than purchasing a new key is there any way to activate this old version of Office 2016?

You are likely to get better responses by posting in the Office section of TenForums.

But I think the answer will be, "No.".


All the best,
Denis

If you are giving the laptop away to somebody, don't put office back on there. It was licensed to your daughter as a student.

MAK copies of Office products use Volume Licensing, so it needs to be activated by the school's servers. As pparks1 noted, the school's license agreement is for her educational use and not to be redistributed.

garlin said:

MAK copies of Office products use Volume Licensing, so it needs to be activated by the school's servers. As pparks1 noted, the school's license agreement is for her educational use and not to be redistributed.

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That's not true. You're thinking of KMS keys. MAK keys like KMS keys are volume license keys. However, MAK keys are activated online through a Microsoft activation server. Unlike retail keys the same MAK key can update more than copy of the software. How many depends upon how many activations have been purchased from Microsoft.

When the school bought Office 2016 they probably bought a certain number of activations. They probably used up all of them years ago. If that is true then nobody will be able to install Office 2016 and activate it again. Of course the school could have purchased more activations but that would not make sense since Office 2016 is so old. Besides Microsoft probably stopped selling activations for Office 2016 years ago.

I know this for sure because I have used MAK keys. I support a 501(c)(3) non-profit. Ten years ago I purchased Windows 8 Pro and Office 2013 Pro Plus from a Microsoft Volume License Distributor. I logged onto the Microsoft Volume License Service Center and retrieved the MAK keys for the software. There were also KMS keys there but I couldn't use them because we did have a way to activate them.

BTW, even though Windows 8 Pro had a MAK key I was still able able to update it to Windows 8.1 Pro and then to Windows 10 Pro for free.

Below shows the information I documented after I logged into the Microsoft Volume License Service Center. You can see that I have MAK keys for Office 2010 Pro Plus and Office 2013 Pro Plus. I activated these copies of Office while sitting in my living room.

Hi,
If you feel obligated to give it away with office you can monitor this thread for cheap licenses

Otherwise let the recipient know about the thread and they can purchase a key.

Thanks all

@MisterEd. Yes, MAK (multiple activation keys) are different than KMS keys. However, I think the volume license agreement states that it's for users of the organization or educational facility.

While I could give my mak key for work to friends, family and acquaintances, I'm pretty sure that would be in violation of the EULA.

pparks1 said:

@MisterEd. Yes, MAK (multiple activation keys) are different than KMS keys. However, I think the volume license agreement states that it's for users of the organization or educational facility.

While I could give my mak key for work to friends, family and acquaintances, I'm pretty sure that would be in violation of the EULA.

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The keys I obtained were for a computer owned by the 501(c)(3) organization I belong to. We went through an organization called TechSoup.org to buy the keys. We had to prove to TechSoup that we were an educational 501(c)(3) organization before they would allow us to buy anything. One of our members wanted me to obtain software for their personal computer. I declined saying that was not a legitimate use. Any volume license software we purchased could only be used by computers owned by the nonprofit.

You can only use the same MAK key to install the same software on more than one computer if you purchased multiple activations for the software. I.E., if you bought 10 activations then you could use the same MAK key to install the software on up to 10 computers. Microsoft starts you with a 50 activation limit to cover when the software has to be reinstalled later. Microsoft will if asked increase that limit.

I suppose that I could have have given away the MAK key to someone else to use for themselves testing the maximum activation limit. However, since I was a board member I had a duty not do something unethical like that.