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Office 365 allows (*) any user to install all Office applications (currently Office 2016) for which he/she has been granted a license on up to 5 devices; if the user installs the applications from the Office 365 portal, the installed software is automatically linked to his/her user account; if instead the Office Deployment Tool is used, the software is not automatically activated, and the user is asked to sign in to Office 365 when first starting any Office program, in order to activate it.

This is all fine and good, but what to do if you want to change the associated user account for an Office installation? If UserA used PC1 and thus the installed Office software on PC1 has been associated to UserA's account, and now PC1 must be given to UserB, how can I re-associate that Office installation to UserB without having to reinstall the whole package?

(*) Depending on the subscription plan.

Massimo
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3 Answers3

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Subscription-licensed copies of Office are associated with the user's Office 365 account. Even if you reinstalled Office, that does not remove the computer from the original users's account. It's Microsoft's servers which are the canonical source of the subscription/activation info.

You need to deactivate the Office instance in the Office 365 Portal. Once that happens, the installed copy of Office will deactivate on the client. In my testing, the client shows a "subscription expired" pop-up the next time Office is opened. However, there might be some lag for the client to detect the deactivation (e.g. If the PC has no Internet connection when it is deactivated).

Once the "subscription expired" message appears, the new user can enter their Office 365 credentials to activate the install in their name.

Office 365 admins can list the activated Office 365 ProPlus installs for a user and deactivate them via the user accounts list in the admin portal. This is a relatively new feature, so you may find a number of outdated blog posts and documentation that says users must deactivate their installs individually.

Regular Office 365 users can self-manage their ProPlus installs by signing into the Office 365 portal (portal.office.com). So they can take care of deactivating old installs on their own without admin intervention.

I must point out that what you are trying to do seems like a pretty pointless exercise, unless the first User has hit their 5 device limit and needs to deactivate an old PC move on to a new one.

One of the major benefits of subscription-licensed Office is you are pretty much always compliant with the licensing, as long as you have Office 365 ProPlus subscriptions for all of your users. In your example above, it does not matter that "UserA" has activated a copy of Office on a PC being used by "UserB". Just make sure you have licenses assigned to all of your users in the Office 365 admin portal.

Also, note that the activation portion of Office 365 ProPlus is independent of the "sign into office" feature (the username in the top right of the Office application). It is perfectly valid for UserB to be signed into Office even though it was activated by UserA.

If UserA leaves your organization, then you just need to unassign their license in the admin portal (which you should be doing anyway as part of your offboarding procedure). That will deactivate UserA's install, requiring UserB to activate.

If the computer is shared by multiple users (a terminal server or a student lab), then you should look into Shared Computer activation. But this is not necessary for regular PC turnover.

In my organization, I haven't bothered with deactivating during normal PC turnover, until a user hits the 5 device limit. Then we login to the portal and clean out old PCs they are no longer using.

myron-semack
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  • For "common use" PCs or other similar scenarios, there is a separate Shared Computer Activation scenario which will not bind to a specific user subscription but will require each user to have an office sub. – blaughw Jan 20 '16 at 01:47
  • This answer is not correct for several reasons: 1) Administrators *can* list active installations for each user and deactivate them. 2) Deactivating an installed copy has no immediate effect (a timeout is probably needed before the installed Office re-checks its activation status and find it missing). – Massimo Jan 20 '16 at 01:48
  • Yes. https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dn782860.aspx Unfortunately this STILL cannot be set via GPO. It can be set via registry or in the setup config.xml file (doesn't require reinstall, just reconfigure). – blaughw Jan 20 '16 at 01:52
  • @blaughw This is not what I asked, but it seems quite useful anyway; but am I correct in understanding this is allowed only with the ProPlus plan (and not f.e. with Business Premium)? – Massimo Jan 20 '16 at 01:52
  • Default activation tickets are valid for (I think) 30 days. There is a place in O365s virtual file system to delete the license files, which would cause a client to try to reactivate. – blaughw Jan 20 '16 at 01:53
  • Technet does say ProPlus. I don't know if it would work with a Business plan. – blaughw Jan 20 '16 at 01:54
  • @Massimo, please provide a link showing how an administrator can deactivate an Office 365 ProPlus subscription, because that directly contradicts the link in my answer above. – myron-semack Jan 21 '16 at 00:15
  • Shared Computer Activation is intended for a Remote Desktop Scenario. Before that feature existed, you could not use Office 365 ProPlus on an RDS server. – myron-semack Jan 21 '16 at 00:21
  • @msemack I am currently administering an Office 365 tenant, and I am perfectly able to see where any user installed Office, and to deactivate any one of those installations. I don't know how long ago this feature has been introduced, but it's definitely there. – Massimo Jan 21 '16 at 00:56
  • Here are some examples: http://snag.gy/t7lFa.jpg http://snag.gy/Tlg2Y.jpg – Massimo Jan 21 '16 at 01:00
  • @Massimo you've answered your own question then. Deactivate the Office install in the portal. After that happens, Office will prompt to reactive next time it opens (i just tested it), UserB enters their credentials, and Office re-activates. – myron-semack Jan 21 '16 at 01:59
  • I tested it too, but it didn't prompt for reactivation until I meddled with the license on the client system, too; it looks like there is (as much as) a 30-days period before the client acknowledges it's not licensed anymore. I'll perform some more tests and report my findings. – Massimo Jan 21 '16 at 09:17
  • I'm not sure why this is an issue anyway. It does not harm anything for the Office Activation to be UserA. UserB can still use Office without limitation. – myron-semack Jan 21 '16 at 10:22
  • Maybe UserA doesn't work here anymore. Maybe we just would like to track licenses to whoever is actually using them. Point is, Office 365 should allow us to do this properly. Everything else is just a clumsy workaorund. – Massimo Jan 22 '16 at 04:00
  • If UserA is gone, you disable their account, unassign the license, and move on. I understand what you're saying, but the major point of the subscription Office is you don't have to track it anymore. When the user runs out, they get a pop-up to deactivate, you take care of it and move on. You are always in compliance. – myron-semack Jan 23 '16 at 12:52
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Use ospp.vbs. It seems that osaui.exe /f is no longer an option after Office 2010. https://community.spiceworks.com/how_to/48973-remove-and-re-add-license-key-for-office-2013-on-office-365

S Erxleben
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Here is another fantastic guide that describes the process of removing the volume license associated with your macOS: https://techdirectarchive.com/2022/07/09/remove-office-license-file-how-do-you-change-the-account-that-office-says-it-belongs-to-on-a-mac/

Also, how can I deactivate Office365 and Microsoft 365 for business?

  • Note: For Office 2021, 2019, 2016, and 2013, there is no way to deactivate Office Home & Student, Office Home & Business, Office Professional, or individual Office apps. Instead, you must reinstall and activate using the process described in this link.
TechUser
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