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This article applies to Office Home & Business, Office Professional, and individually purchased Office apps. To switch an Office install to or from Microsoft 365, see Switch your Office license.

Change the product key for your version

How you change the product key depends on your version of Office. Select your Office version from the tabs below.

Best practice for multiple versions of Office

If you bought multiple copies of Office and used the same Install button to install Office on multiple PCs, activation fails on the other PCs. This happens because each Install button is associated with a unique product key that can only be installed on one PC. To fix this, you can change the product key for the other PCs where you installed Office.

Note: After you change your product key, we recommend that you create a list to manage the product keys that you've installed. To learn how, see Manage multiple one-time-purchase Office installs that use the same Microsoft account.

Most versions of Office 2024, Office 2021, and Office 2019 don’t include a product key and you only need to sign in with the account already linked to your Office license.

If your version did include a product key, follow the steps under the 2016 tab.

  1. On the device where you want to change the key, open any Office app, select the File menu and then select Account near the bottom of the menu.

  2. Under Product Information, select the Switch License button.

    If there is no Switch License button, you may need to install Office updates.

  3. Do one of the following:

    • If you're signed in, select Use a different account, and then select Enter product key instead.

    • If you're not signed in, select Enter product key instead.

  4. Enter your Office 2016 product key, and then select Install this product instead.

    If your product key is new, follow the prompts to complete the redemption process.

  5. Office begins the update process. Close all Office apps to finish the process.

  1. Sign in to your Services & subscriptions page with the email and password associated with the Microsoft account that was used to install Office.

    After you sign in, you should see a list of Office products that are associated with your Microsoft account.

  2. For the first product that's listed on the page, select View product key. Copy or write down the product key. This is likely the product key that was used multiple times to install Office.

  3. Select View product key for the remaining Office products and copy or write them down. These are likely the keys that you'll use to replace the key that was used multiple times.

  4. On a PC where Office activation is failing, open the Command Prompt as described below:

    Windows 10 and Windows 8.1   

    Windows 7   

    1. Select the Start button Windows Start button in Windows 8 and Windows 10 (lower-left corner).

    2. Type Command Prompt.

    3. Right-click the Command Prompt icon, and select Run as administrator.

    1. Select the Start button Windows 7 Start button (lower-left corner).

    2. Right-click Command Prompt and select Run as administrator.

  5. From the drop-down list below, select your Office version and Windows version (32-bit or 64-bit) and run the commands as described.

    Tips: 

  6. Now start an Office app, such as Word, and select Next to activate Office over the Internet.

  7. Repeat this process for each PC where activation is failing.

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