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Office Mac 2011 - Max Activation

DarkoDonnie

DarkoDonnie

macrumors member
Original poster
Jun 18, 2013
78
3
I bought copy of office for my home and office iMacs.

Licences good for 2 users. So both computers activated fine.

I traded in iMac's for a retina macbook pro.

I reformatted both iMac's clean for resale.

I setup new rMBP, try to add Office, getting:

Online activation did not complete successfully because the product key has been used the maximum number of times permitted
Click to expand...

So i tried their phone activation twice (which involves entering a 48 key ID). The machine hung up on me after i entered the numbers.

Why does microsoft hate me.

I know it's so stereotypical to bash microsoft, but I get so angry at these over-looked usability issues. I've dumped 45min into this already and am so frusterated.

Anyone experience this, with office 2011. What number did you call? I can't even find a phone number on the microsoft website.. the things so hard to use.
 
TEG

TEG

macrumors 604
Jan 21, 2002
6,621
169
Langley, Washington
I've had a similar issue in the past. I usually have to just press all zeros to get someone to come on the line, explain the situation, and they clear the issue.
 
cledet

cledet

macrumors regular
Mar 26, 2012
138
0
San Francisco, CA
Yeah, if I recall correctly. There isn't a way to deactivate your Office 2011 on your computer. Unless, of course, you have an Office 385 subscription. Just call them up again, spam 0 until you get an actual person. They'll remove the activations for you.
 
KUguardgrl13

KUguardgrl13

macrumors 68020
May 16, 2013
2,492
125
Kansas, USA
If you have a Microsoft store in your area they will correct software issues. Unfortunately they will touch your computer and probably mess something up. My boyfriend had issues installing a new license of 365 on a brand new Lenovo and then it somehow started blue screening.
 
B

b9k

macrumors newbie
Jul 16, 2013
2
0
I had the same issue. Had it with Windows XP (a full paid Professional version) as well back in the days when I was still using that.

At some point I had enough of calling Microsoft every time because of this rather customer unfriendly "feature".
For both Office and Windows I ended up using a crack. Or replacing their software. That's how the customer chooses. Bye bye MS. Welcome :apple: :D
 
DarkoDonnie

DarkoDonnie

macrumors member
Original poster
Jun 18, 2013
78
3
Thanks for the advice and shared experiences.

I did the "0 0 0 0 0 " thing and get a "activation specialist" from across the globe..

He said I had to tell him the "Install ID" which was a 48 character string... Repeat. I had to vocally give a 48 character string of numbers over the phone.

After ranting about really having to give him this crazy number. I used the osx's speech tool instead of reading.

He said it was to quick.

I tried it again slower, he said it was too quick.

It might of been quick, but I couldn't bring myself to that level of non-usability.

Anyways, I finally dropped my values and read it.

Then he said:

I'm so sorry my tools are not working, please call back in 15 minutes.
I was furious. Microsoft has made me NEVER want to purchase any product ever again. It's 10x easier to find a cracked version than to deal with their customer support and ridiculous ID numbers.

Sure the guy was probably lying about his tools to get me off the line because i was being difficult.

I wrote down what happened, gave it to the boss, told him I'm not dealing with this.. so, no longer my problem
Click to expand...
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