Microsoft Office Perpetual License Management

These instructions apply to Microsoft Office Home & Student or Microsoft Office Home & Business licenses.  It could be applicable to other Microsoft perpetual licenses.

Microsoft Office 2019 / Microsoft Office 2021 / Microsoft Office 2024

Microsoft Office licenses are linked to an email account.  This email account cannot be associated with a previous email that was tied to an Microsoft 365 subscription.  So if you have used Microsoft services in the past, we recommend creating a new Gmail account to be used for all your license registrations.  Each email account can be used to register 25 licenses.  An example email address you might use is [businessname].software01@gmail.com.

Microsoft Office 2016, 2013, 2010 or earlier versions

These versions of Office are activated with a numerical product key.  This product key must be documented and retained for future installations or activations.  There is no way to recover a lost key but there are tools to extrapolate the key from a working computer with an active Office license installed.  

Installation Steps

1. Register your new license.
   1. Go to the site https://setup.office.com/.
   2. If you already have a Microsoft account that has been used to register licenses, sign in.
   3. If you don’t have an account with registered licenses, create a new account.
   4. Follow the instructions to enter the product key which will register your license. 
2. Download & install your software
   1. Uninstall any previous or conflicting versions of Microsoft Office software, including Office 365 and reboot the system.
   2. From a computer with the software already installed
      1. If Microsoft Office was installed by Gravity IT Solutions on any other computer you have access to, the software installation files should be located in the “C:\User\Public\Public Downloads” folder.  You can copy the directory to a USB flash drive.
      2. Insert the USB drive into the computer where you need to install Office.
      3. Copy the folder to the “C:\User\Public\Public Downloads” folder.
      4. Double click on the Office installation file and follow the on screen instructions to install the software.
3. Activate your Office software
   1. Launch Microsoft Word.
   2. Follow the prompts to activate Office.  For Office 2019, 2021, or 2024 use the select the sign-in method.  For previous versions, you can enter your product key.
   3. Follow the instructions and the software should be activated.
4. Reviewing your licenses (Office 2019, 2021, 2024)
   1. If you don’t have one, create a dedicated email account for license registration.
   2. Login to your Microsoft account at https://account.microsoft.com/services.
   3. Look for “Products you’ve purchased” which should show drop downs for each specific version or edition of the products you have purchased.  Expand the list.
   4. Review your licenses.  The software can also be downloaded from this page.

Resources

Get help with product key errors on Office.com/setup