You are prompted to activate Office XP after you install from an image that is properly licensed

View products that this article applies to.

This article was previously published under Q312594

Expand all | Collapse all

SYMPTOMS

When Office XP is distributed to many users as part of a hard disk image, those users should not have to activate the product. However, the first time that a user starts an Office program that was installed in this way, they may be prompted to activate the product. This behavior occurs even though the correct volume license CD key was used for Office XP when it was installed on the original computer.

Back to the top

CAUSE

This behavior occurs when both of the following conditions are true:

Office XP is installed on one computer, and then the image of that hard drive is restored to another computer.
When Office XP is installed, the ENTERPRISE_IMAGE=TRUE property is not set.

If the ENTERPRISE_IMAGE property is set to TRUE, the Office XP Setup program cannot create a digital license identification that is based on the hardware components of the original computer. Setup generates a unique digital license identification on each client computer the first time that Office is started, instead of when Office XP is initially installed.

Back to the top

RESOLUTION

To resolve the problem, re-create the image including the ENTERPRISE_IMAGE property. To do this, follow these steps:

Run Setup with the /a option to create an Office XP administrative installation point.

NOTE: Type the 25-character Volume License Product Key that is assigned to your organization, and not the retail product key, when you create the administrative image.
Do one of the following:
- On a computer that has never had Office installed, click Start, and then click Run. Type the name and path to Office Setup, append NOUSERNAME=True ENTERPRISE_IMAGE=True, and then click OK. For example, type the following:
  \\server\share\admin_install_point\setup.exe NOUSERNAME=True ENTERPRISE_IMAGE=True
  -or-
- If you use the Custom Installation Wizard, start the Custom Installation Wizard, and then set the following properties on the Modify Setup Properties page:
  NOUSERNAME=True
  ENTERPRISE_IMAGE=True
  Save the settings in the Custom Installation Wizard. On a computer that has never had Office installed, click Start, and then click Run. Type the name and path to Office Setup, and then click OK.
After Office is installed, create a disk image.