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Failed to activate Office 365 & 2016 Preview. Error 0x8004FC12

So I have an Office 365 subcription and decided to try out the new Office 2016 Preview. The installation went smoothly, then I opened an app (i.e. Word 2016 Preview) there was a dialog asking for my email and password, I filled both of them and everything starts just as I has successfully activated Office.

Just one second later, my title bar changed to red with a text said "unlicensed product" and another dialog box appeared asking me to activate Office with 2 options

- activate over the internet

- activate over telephone (disabled, which lead the first option the only one)

and when I pressed "Next", there was a message said "We're sorry, something went wrong and we can't do it right now. Error 0x8004FC12"

Here is what I tried:

- reset my Windows (Windows 10 Insider Preview build 10130)

- uninstall Office and deactivate my installation before download new installation file

And none of them worked

I appreciate any possible fix, thank you :)

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I am using Windows 10, build 10158 which was installed last night.  I had been using Office 2016 for about 2-3 weeks.  Everything had been fine and continued to be fine last night.  Today, I get essentially the same problem as originally posted - although without any stated error code.  (Time of posting 1:10 p.m. PDT)

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Just fixed the problem.  Hope this helps others.  Go to control panel, then programs and features.  Find the office 2016 installation - which is probably ID'd in reference to Office 365 - with a version of 16.xxxxxx.  Highlight it by RIGHT clicking.  Then click repair.  Then click quick repair.  After the completion of the quick repair, everything worked fine.

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Hello Tien,

Thank you for posting your query on Microsoft Office Community.

As mentioned by Andy, let's repair the Office 2016 Preview, restart the computer, then try activating and verify the result. 

In order to repair, go to Control Panel > Programs and Features > click on Office 2016 Preview in the list > click on Change > choose Quick Repair.

If Quick Repair does not resolve the issue then you may try to do an Online Repair.

Thank you.

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I was using Windows 10 IP build 10130, so I installed build 10159 with an iso file then I can install office 365 (2013) again, still too afraid to install the 2016 Preview.

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Hello Tien,

Thank you for posting your query on Microsoft Office Community.

As mentioned by Andy, let's repair the Office 2016 Preview, restart the computer, then try activating and verify the result. 

In order to repair, go to Control Panel > Programs and Features > click on Office 2016 Preview in the list > click on Change > choose Quick Repair.

If Quick Repair does not resolve the issue then you may try to do an Online Repair.

Thank you.

This did not work for me unfortunately, neither did completely reinstalling office or completely reinstalling windows 10. Can you please tell me what other solutions may be available. I used to own a licenced copy of Office 2010 before the upgrade to Win 10, but that was obviously deleted along with all my files and other programs during the upgrade. 

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I had this error with retail windows 10 and current Office 2013, but the solution might be the same.

After some 3 hours with MS support, a guy installed "ultra surf" on my machine, opened it, and then tried to activate office. Then it "just worked".

I'm not sure why. Ultra Surf is apparently designed to bypass China's censorship firewall.

So maybe give that a try.

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This actually worked inmediatly

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But what about people who live in canada usa or europe?

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I'm in the U.S. Can't speak for anywhere else.

I guess we don't know where the office 365 activation servers are..

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Just reporting in that I was having the same issue, I'm in the US and downloaded ultra surf. Office activated right away. Kinda strange, but hey it worked.

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Last updated November 6, 2021 Views 9 Applies to: