Bought and installed Office Home & Student 2021 but forced to activate Microsoft 365

Hello St. G, Welcome to Microsoft Community. I am a Microsoft user just like you, I hope you are doing well. To best resolve this issue, I will need you to remove Office apps from your device completely and reinstall Office 2021 from your Microsoft account. >> Step 1: Remove Office for Mac applications 1. Open Finder > Applications. 2.Command ⌘ + click to select all of the Office for Mac applications. 3. Ctrl+click an application you selected and click Move to Trash. >> Step 2: Remove files from your user Library folder 1. In Finder, press ⌘+Shift+g. 2. In the window that opens, enter ~/Library and then click Go. 3. Open the Containers folder and ctrl+click each of these folders and Move to Trash. Note that some of these folders may not be present. com.microsoft.errorreporting com.microsoft.Excel com.microsoft.netlib.shipassertprocess com.microsoft.Office365ServiceV2 com.microsoft.Outlook com.microsoft.Powerpoint com.microsoft.RMS-XPCService com.microsoft.Word com.microsoft.onenote.mac 4. Click the back arrow to go back to the Library folder and open Group Containers. Ctrl+click each of these folders if present, and Move to Trash. UBF8T346G9.ms UBF8T346G9. Office UBF8T346G9. OfficeOsfWebHost Step 3: Remove from Dock and restart 1. If you put any of the Office applications in your Dock, go to each one and ctrl + click > Options > Remove from Dock. 2. Restart your Mac to complete the uninstall. For more guidance with uninstalling Office on Mac: https://support.microsoft.com/help/eefa1199-5b58-43af-8a3d-b73dc1a8cae3 >> Step 4: Remove Office license files on a Mac using license removal tool.  1. Download the license removal tool. https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?linkid=849815 2. Open the .pkg file from your Mac's Downloads folder. 3. Select Continue and follow the prompts in the setup wizard. 4. When you're ready to complete the license removal, select Install. You may need to enter your Mac's local admin account password. After the tool successfully removes licenses, select Close. >> Step 5: Reinstall your Microsoft Office 2021 from your Microsoft account by signing in https://office.com/myaccount For more guidance with installing Office on Mac: https://support.microsoft.com/help/4414eaaf-0478-48be-9c42-23adc4716658 >> Step 7: Uninstall the License Removal Tool by dragging the Microsoft_Office_License_Removal file from Finder > Downloads to Trash https://support.microsoft.com/help/b032c0f6-a431-4dad-83a9-6b727c03b193 Source: https://support.microsoft.com/office/ec3aa66e-6a76-451f-9d35-cba2e14e94c0 Please let me know if you need any more assistance. Give back to the Community, Help the next person who has this issue by indicating if this reply solved your problem. Click Yes or No below. Warm Regards

ACTIVATE MICROSOFT OFFICE

Stand-alone perpetual license:

Activate Office for Mac - Microsoft Support

I cannot believe that after purchasing & installing 2021 Office...you're now telling us that really, it doesn't work unless we go through all of the steps you listed in your reply. I have never had to do that when installing previous Office versions or any other software. Like the previous person, I cannot edit any of my Word docs that were created in Office 2019.

I'm having the same problem.

This can't be. I'm not purchasing MS Office 2021 to have to go through all of this to have my license activated. Ridiculous.

Suddenly Office 2021 Mac is not licensed:
Many users are experiencing this problem. Please use this link to Contact Support and explain the situation. The cause and cure are not yet known. It is important to submit a report so that Microsoft becomes aware that many users are affected. – Thanks
https://support.microsoft.com/ContactUs

I'm having the same problem. I happen to have a subscription for Office 365 (through GoDaddy) to use online only, but I wanted to be able to write and edit on my desktop so I purchased the programs and downloaded them. But I'm being told I can't do that without Activating Microsoft 365. It's ridiculous that I can't get anyone on the phone to explain the issue.

I followed your instructions to delete 2019 Office for Home. I followed your instructions to install the 2021 version and it's not there. Where is it?

My issue was resolved by calling MS help...several times. After multiple steps & calls, they were finally able to restore MS Office so that I can use it. That's the only thing I would recommend it the problem still exists.

Microsoft pages run people in circles. I never found a phone number. I got so frustrated that I was going to sign up for the free trial 365 and continue to try and find a way to connect with a real person where I could open and use the student version of Office. While going through page after page I discovered that all I needed to do was open up Word and click a button. Nowhere did it say that in the initial instructions. God, I hate Microsoft. I only use Mac computers because any question I have I can call them and get the problem resolved with a real customer service person in a matter of minutes I would think that would be cheaper than paying an army of people to write all these useless instructions. half of which make no sense.