I cannot update my Office license from "Office Home & Student 2021" to "Office Professional Plus 2021"

Mr. Tillman --

Thanks for replying!

A website named "Citizen Goods" had this announcement on their website:

"Today through Citizen Goods, you can buy the entire 2021 Microsoft Office Professional Suite for just $50. This is markedly cheaper than the normal listed price of $350. Plus, this is not a subscription-based plan that requires monthly payments, but instead a one-time payment that will let you keep the software for life."

I purchased it because I am a software engineer and wanted Microsoft Publisher and Access in addition to Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook (and because the $50 price was very very very good).

This is the website:

https://www.citizengoods.com/sales/microsoft-office-professional-plus-2021-for-windows

I was unaware that the "Professional" version of Office requires a volume license server. I checked this Microsoft website:

and saw this information:

• For 1 person

Since neither the Microsoft website nor the citizengoods website mentioned anything other than a single-user, permanent license, I thought it was a valid offer, just at an insanely low price.

-Brian Kasper

Hi Brian, as Brian Tilman stated you have an unlicensed version of Office Pro Plus. It may work for a longish time or a short time but Microsoft will catch up and disable it.

The thing that troubles me is that there was no indication during the purchasing process (which took place on a microsoft website) that the license was in any way incorrect or invalid. I'm not trying to do anything unethical or illegal, I'm just trying to understand (a) why this is not a valid license, and (b) why there was no indication from Microsoft during the purchasing process that I was doing something that's not approved.

The order shows up both in my Microsoft order list and in my list of "Products you've purchased" under "Services and Subscriptions":

If there's no indication from Microsoft that I'm not purchasing the correct license (and to be frank, Microsoft's licensing is somewhat confusing) how can I prevent an issue like this from occurring in the future? I even checked this Microsoft web page:

to be sure that a single-time-purchase license of Office Pro 2021 existed (I grant you, at a much-higher price, but I thought that the website from which I was purchasing it had somehow wrangled a deal).

-Brian

OK, that makes sense.

Speaking as someone who was confused by this, perhaps Microsoft could make this distinction more readily apparent?

Thanks again to everyone who responded. Looks like I'll have to go back to citizengoods.com and request a refund, however unlikely that may be to succeed.

-Brian