I have a Mac Studio with an external SSD. The SSD has never been attached to anything other than that one Mac Studio. The SSD has a container with four volumes: two boot volumes, a volume for applications not distributed as part of macOS, and a volume with my home directory. I bought a lifetime (i.e., one-time purchase) license for Microsoft Office 2021 and installed it on the volume for applications not distributed as part of macOS. When the boot volumes were Ventura and Sonoma, they both saw Office as activated and I could edit and save Office documents stored in my home directory while booted from either Ventura or Sonoma. I replaced Ventura with Sequoia. I encountered some problems and did a clean install, using Migration Assistant to bring over system settings and related files from Sonoma. I now find that Office is still activated when I boot Sonoma, but is not activated when I boot Sequoia and I canât activate it in Sequoia. When I go to https://account.microsoft.com/services/, I can log in and it shows that Iâve purchased Office Home & Business 2021 for Mac. When I boot into Sequoia, open Word, click the Activate button on the Word start page, I get a window suggesting that I start a one month free trial of Microsoft 365 (which I donât want to do) and a link to âRestore previous purchaseâ. When I click that link, I get a window with the heading âUse this Apple Account with Apple Media Services?â. It shows the Email address associated with my Apple ID (this is not the same Email address I used when purchasing the Microsoft license, but the Email address I used when purchasing the Microsoft license is not associated with any Apple account). I click the âUse This Accountâ button and I get an error message saying âNo subscription found. This Apple ID doesnât have a paid Microsoft 365 subscriptionâ. I donât understand this Apple Media Services stuff. I just want to login to Microsoft using the Microsoft account that I used when I purchased the Office 2021 license to activate Office 2021 for the Sequoia boot volume.
Do you have any suggestion about how I can activate Office 2021 or failing that, how I can contact a human being at Microsoft for help?
Itâs trying to activate it as a subscription to Microsoft 365, not as a perpetual license for Office 2021. Since you donât have a 365 subscription, this process isnât going to work. Also, your license would be associated with an Apple ID only if you bought the license (perpetual or subscription) through the Mac App Store. Otherwise, itâs just an email address, no necessary relation to your Apple ID.
What is in the âUse this Apple Accountâ pop-up besides the email address and the âUse This Accountâ button? Are there any options to try a different email address, or not use an Apple ID at all? If you can set a different email address, temporarily ignore that the window says âApple Accountâ and try using the email associated with your actual license.
If that doesnât work, try this: boot into Sequoia, launch Word, go to the Word menu and select âAbout Microsoft Wordâ. What version does it say it is, what type of license (if any) does it say you have, and whatâs the copyright date shown at the bottom? Note these things down, then boot into Sonoma and check the same things. Based on the behavior youâre seeing, Iâm expecting at least the license information to be different, but Iâm curious as to whether the versions and copyright dates match.
I am using an old 27in iMac with Sequoia (15.7.3 - last OS it can run). I have always bought Office and am now running the latest 2021 (16.104). Every quarter I file a business return to the tax people using an Excel add-in which places my data in the right boxes. The August submission went fine. When I came to prepare the (overdue) November one, Excel asked me to activate 365. It accepted that I wasnât an owner and confirmed that I do have a valid license for 2021. The final step failed with the message âUnable to connect to the licensing helperâ. Now Excel will not print nor save existing worksheets. I havenât tried to open an new worksheet but find that neither Word nor PowerPoint will allow me to type into file. Fortunately the tax add-in worked so I can avoid a penalty.
To answer the suggestion made above. The Licence IDs for my 3 Office apps are identiical. I have spent several hours trying to resolve the problem, these include a 40 minute chat on Just Answer to which I was sent by a Microsoft chatbot. The last suggestion of Just Answer was to trash an Office Group Container. When that failed, I was asked to go back to Microsoft but not precisely where. So far my further searches have proved fruitless.
Given that Excel was OK up until August, I suspect the last Sequoia upgrade was a bit too protective. But how to cure it is well beyond my pay-grade, I hope someone can light the way. In the meantime Excel continues to calculate existing worksheets and I can save any changes with screen dumps.
You are not alone. I replaced a sick (dead) iMac running Mojave with a refurbished 2017 iMac and kept its Mojave (needed for running old apps like iTunes). I just use it as a media server but decided to install MS Office as a backup to my main computer.
All seemed to go well until I entered my MS user name to âactivateâ Office, after opening Word. The system doesnât get past this step with a spinning icon.
After trying a variety of steps I have given up and installed Libre Office on that computer.
Just want to say Libre Office is a pretty smooth transition from MS Office. The interface and the way the software works allowed me to simply start using Libre Office. Appleâs office applications work so differently from MS Office that I decided I didnât want to spend the time needed to learn how to use them.
Yes - and Libre Office has some useful extra features such as a database. I would have installed it initially but had a subscribed copy of MS Office available. If only I had known I would be wasting my timeđ
Office 2021 is still supported. I think it is important to contact Microsoft Support, get a human on the other end of the line, and hold their feet to the fire until they fix it.
It should be updated by Microsoft Autoupdater. If you donât use that or suspect that the helper is not on form, go here:
and youâll be able to download a new one. I installed the new one and launched Excel without rebooting. All iseems fine now in Excel, PowerPoint and Word (I donât use One Note).
Iâm glad to hear that you were able to resolve the issue. Thanks for sharing the conclusion!
Companies like Microsoft and Google can be mediocre at best when supporting their âfreeâ products, but they usually do a reasonable job at supporting their paid products, though sometimes they may take longer to respond than expected.
Itâs often faster to get an answer to a common question from the TidBITS community, and many of us enjoy helping each other with our challenges, but demanding commercial-quality support from commercial companies is important, too. Among other things, it helps the company to understand where the pain points are in the field. In the ideal case, that helps them to prioritize what needs to get fixed.