If Office activation fails, you'll see Unlicensed Product or Non-commercial use / Unlicensed Product in the title bar of your Office apps, and most features of Office are disabled. To restore all features of Office, you'll need to fix the problem that's causing activation to fail.

Office might activate automatically. However, depending on your product you might see the Microsoft Office Activation Wizard. If so, follow the prompts to activate Microsoft 365 . If you need activation help, see Activate Office.

If you try to install and activate these versions of Office on a different computer (owned by you or someone else), or on the same computer after a hardware change, you might see an error message that says you've reached the maximum number of activations.

An activation code (also known as an activation key) is used to activate the software after installation. Activation ensures that the software is genuine and legally licensed. Unlike a product key, which is entered during installation, the activation code is applied after installation.

Check this list for common problems you may experience when you enter your Microsoft account or product key while redeeming your Office product at https://office.com/setup and https://microsoft365.com/setup associates: Here are the common errors and how to fix them. Your product key can only be redeemed once. It isn't meant to be re-used or shared.

If you need help activating Microsoft 365 or Office, see Activate Microsoft 365 or Office for Mac. If activation fails, see What to try if you can't install or activate Microsoft 365 or Office for Mac.

If you see error code 0xC004C060 when you try to activate Office, your product key is no longer valid. If your Office product key doesn’t work, or has stopped working, you should contact the seller and request a refund.

If you keep getting prompted to activate Office Standard or Office Professional Plus on a new PC, you can update the registry to stop the prompts.

Use the Office offline installer to install Office 2016 or Office 2013 if you don't have an active Internet connection or you're having problems with slow speed or unreliable connections.

How to change your product key to fix activation errors that can occur if you own and install multiple one-time purchases of Office..