unable to activate office 2011 after time maching backup

A prompt showed up asking if I wanted to use my Office account or my company account. I dutifully typed in my email address and then cut and pasted my password. After a little whirring and blinking, the installer ran and Office 2016 for Mac was on my Mac.Ĭlicking Done resulted in the installer launching Word, with a nice blue intro screen. The result was a downloaded installer package, which I then ran. Do you see the nice blue 'Install Office' button? Yeah, so did I. Look at that 'Thank you for your order' screenshot carefully. The tl dr of Microsoft is often the same: the hassles you go through in an attempt to do what should have been a very simple process.Īnd with that, the hassles. It's just the account of the hassles I went through attempting to do what should have been a very simple process. You don't have to read all of this if you don't want. After a year or so away from doing Microsoft installs, I'd forgotten just how much of a DMV-like experience dealing with Microsoft products can be. You can see my receipt right there, in the screenshot below.Īre you starting to feel the dread? I wasn't. So, at only $89 for the year (with a ten buck academic discount), I bought my own license. Unfortunately, while the university has an Office 2011 for Mac license, they haven't yet updated to Office 2016 for Mac, which will probably be sometime this fall. I wanted to use Office 2016 and stop all the weirdness that I have to go through when running a Windows instance to edit a Word file. I do a tremendous amount of work in Word and PowerPoint, and I just wanted them to run natively on my Macs. Office 2011 for Mac is so bad that I have a Parallels install of Windows on most of my Macs, just to run Office 2013 in a Windows virtual machine. As you probably know, Office 2016 for Mac was released a few weeks ago, and it's much more in line with the PC version of Office 2013 we're all used to. I get downloadable Office from the school where I teach, but they only have Office 2011 for Mac. Then, just about a year ago, I moved off of Exchange to Gmail, and haven't looked back.Īlthough I cancelled my Office 365 Midsize Business plan, I still have my Office 2013 license for my PCs and my Office 2011 license for my Macs. Although I had Office 2013 licenses as an educator through school, I moved to Office 365 to gain access to Office 365-hosted Exchange. Most of you know that I moved from an Exchange hosting provider to Office 365 a few years ago. Obviously, we're talking about Microsoft. Instead it's more testimony to unnecessary hassle. When I started writing this story, I thought it was going to be a rant.

Unable to activate office 2011 after time maching backup