New hard drive Office for Mac 2011 had to be activated again?

I just had this happen to me. Yes, it's by design. The activation code/license key is tied to a hardware-based ID on the hard drive. I'm not home to break out my box and key information so I was stuck until I deleted the existing file that has the key in it. Now I am in 30-day mode until I get home.

nippyjun said:

My concern is that i now have used the key code twice and if i get yet another hard drive in the future will i be able to use the code again. I think it's 2 installs only.

Click to expand...

usually in that case it will fail to activate and you will have call and they can deactivate the other two installs.

Activation?

I guess I've had my head in the sand. I didn't realize that Office 2011 uses activation. That sucks. I hate worrying about activation when I clone drives or replace drives or whatever.

A bunch of Adobe stuff that requires activation is already enough of a pain.

And yet again...

Same thing on my wife's MacBook Pro, put in a Samsung EVO 500 SSD, Mac Office needs Product Key and she can't find it, argh,,,,

Yikes! What would happen if you buy a new Mac and use Time Machine to move everything over?

DaveTheRave said:

Yikes! What would happen if you buy a new Mac and use Time Machine to move everything over?

Click to expand...

He is right

" After you activate the software product, a specific product key is assigned to the computer hardware on which you installed the product. "

TheSnowman said:

He is right

" After you activate the software product, a specific product key is assigned to the computer hardware on which you installed the product. "

Click to expand...

And why I have made every effort to not use Microsoft or Adobe products; I hate playing that game.

As stupid as it is, this is how it work.

And there is no way to deactivate it. And when I call in to activate, it disconnects me.

And Microsoft wonders why people pirate their software.

alphaod said:

As stupid as it is, this is how it work.

And there is no way to deactivate it. And when I call in to activate, it disconnects me.

And Microsoft wonders why people pirate their software.

Click to expand...

Search around; there's another phone number somewhere. I got through and spend literally an hour with a tech trying to authorize it on a new computer I migrated to. Finally it worked. But the next day when I started the computer again it refused to work. Sigh.

So I bought a copy of Nisus Pro. It wasn't worth the hassle to try again; I'm never going back to Office given that I don't even get what I paid for. Or I'll just resort to pirating my own copy somehow. Ridiculous.

Really strange, but I just restored/migrated a MBA Time Capsule image onto a new rMBP I just purchased. Just about everything worked great, but I couldn't start Word/Excel/Powerpoint, they would all crash because some system libraries weren't migrated over for some reason. Outlook ran fine.

I fully expected to enter the activation key again, since I've had to do it before when migrating and when installing a larger SSD in my MBA.

I ran the Office update utility and updated to the latest Office 2011 version, and miraculously the programs started working again. And I was never asked for my key...

Had the same problem when I upgraded my SSD. I also upgraded to Mavericks at the same time with a clean install on the new SSD. Office didn't let me activate. I don't like to mess around playing games like this with software I PAID FOR. So I installed a version without activation that I found floating around the interwebs. (Just make sure you are running virus scanning software if you try such things.)

Edit: Is there a necromancer at work here? Just realized this is a three year old thread!

MacsAre1 said:

Edit: Is there a necromancer at work here? Just realized this is a three year old thread!

Click to expand...

Yeah, that would be me, but this was the only title that fit my search exactly, seemed to be a still relevant and existing topic / problem, so why not?

Thanks for all replies, still have the situation and long Australia Day weekend down here so no resolution until next week.

This might be helpful: http://www.officeformachelp.com/2014/01/microsoft-office-activation-faqs/

DaveTheRave said:

This might be helpful: http://www.officeformachelp.com/2014/01/microsoft-office-activation-faqs/

Click to expand...

Yes, thanks, pretty much covers everything except my situation of a lost CD and not having the Product KEY available!