Office 2013 suite now demands a product key on Windows 10 Home

Dear Michael Henrickson

Welcome to Microsoft Community.

By your description, it seems that you need a key for office 2013. Your office 2013 worked fine before but is now in an inactive state? It requires you to enter the key and does not recognise your Microsoft account is that correct? Please correct me in your reply if I have misunderstood.

In order to better assist you with your problem, I need to ascertain the following information from you.

• How did you purchase your office 2013 at the time?

• Did you change your device or motherboard, which prevented your office 2013 from opening?

I hope the above information helps and if you have any additional information to add, please share it with me in your reply.

Thank you for your patience and understanding. I look forward to hearing from you.

Best Regards,

LucyW-MSFT | Microsoft Community Support Specialist

No system hardware changes. OS upgrades from XP and then VISTA over the years were accomplished digitally as was the last migration for Office. This is why I can't understand why MS won't pick up the digital license from the account.

hi Michael Henrickson

I am glad to hear from you.

• Is your current office in an inactive state? Has it suddenly entered this state?

• By "last migration for Office" do you mean that you have transferred office from one device to another?

• Did you do anything before office wouldn't open properly?

Hope it helps! If any update, welcome to share with us.

Best Regards,

LucyW-MSFT | Microsoft Community Support Specialist

• Is your current office in an inactive state? Has it suddenly entered this state? Not inactive but it has a deadline of 3/25 before it becomes so.

• By "last migration for Office" do you mean that you have transferred office from one device to another? No, last upgrade (from Office 2007 to Office 2013).

• Did you do anything before office wouldn't open properly? No. Just began insisting I retrieve the key this week.

Hi Michael Henrickson

I am glad to receive your reply.

• "Not inactive but it has a deadline of 3/25 before it becomes so."

  Where does that expiration date appear? If it is convenient for you, can you take a screenshot and share it with me?Office 2013 or Office 2007 is a permanent version, there should be no problem that you can't use it due to expiration.

• By "last migration for Office" do you mean that you have transferred office from one device to another? No, last upgrade (from Office 2007 to Office 2013).

  According to my understanding, office 2007 and office 2013 are two different products and cannot be upgraded directly. So I need to verify your product information with you again. You can open word and click File > Account to check your product information.

  
  

• Did you do anything before office wouldn't open properly? No. Just began insisting I retrieve the key this week.

  I am sorry for your inconvenience, I understand your anxiety and want to help you effectively. However, the key is your personal information and we do not have access to it.

  There are two types of keys: activation keys in a colorful box, and redemption keys that are directly bound to your account. Since you purchased the key 10 years ago, you may have purchased the activation key in a box. The activation key is completely private to people other than the user, and only you can see it. If your key is a redemption key for a bound account, the key will be redeemed, the product will be bound to your account, and the key will become useless.

Best Regards,

LucyW-MSFT | Microsoft Community Support Specialist

Lucy: I deeply appreciate your diligence in tracking this!

Short answer: I see that Microsoft is sunsetting all support for office 2013 in April, 2023 so I've elected to purchase a stand-alone Office Home and Business (2021).

If it comes up in conversation with your superiors, please let them know the Office subscription outside of an enterprise environment is likely one of the dumber things Microsoft has thought of in the last few years. Of note: It should be far easier to obtain the stand-alone product than calling the store line so please have them fix that. One other thought (see the 4th bullet below) is to provide for self-reported key uploads to the relevant MS Account for posterity's sake. it would satisfy the need for digital licensing verification and allow consumers to keep a persistent record for their MS applications for retrieval. Tell Bill I'll take a small stock contribution in lieu of my consulting fee for that suggestion ;)

What I know from digging into the machine should anyone come across the conversation:

• The product key cannot be retrieved using the .CMD prompt as Microsoft stopped supporting full keys in that view for products 2013 and later.

• The original Office 2013 package was overwritten with an Office 365 2013 application at some point in the far past. Likely in the migration to Windows 10 about 2016 according to my BelArc Advisor annual scans.

• Both Office packages persisted at the same time on the same machine for at least seven years. Surprising but it's impossible to tell which one was reporting the "no active key" and there were no apparent conflicts.

• Everything installed (MS OS and MS applications) used digital/virtual keys and licenses from upgrades since at least 2008. None of these are reflected in my MS Account. Unless I can find a print-out of the original key for either application at time of download it's impossible to retrieve now.

Again, appreciate your help but you can close this ticket.