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When opening a document I get the message to activate Microsoft 365 to create and exit & that my 2021 license is not supported with this version of the application. How do I reactivate 2021 version? I tried downloading it from my Microsoft account, but it has downloaded the 365 version. The instructions from Microsoft are useless as they say open e.g. Excel and go on File then Account, but 'Account' does not appear as an option
A family of Microsoft word processing software products for creating web, email, and print documents.
Your Office 2021 license should work properly if you uninstall Office release 16.114 and then install a slightly older version, such as 16.113, from the update history page at https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/officeupdates/update-history-office-for-mac .
It did to some extent, so thanks very much.
I ended up having to go back to version 16.102 from October 14 2025 and instead of clicking on 'office suite', I clicked on the individual downloads for Word, Excel etc. All the applications are now working fully on my PC, there is no mention of 365, instead it says the version is Office Home & Student 2021.
I had previously tried more recent versions such as the one suggested, but each time Microsoft 365 was downloaded. I ended up skipping a few versions before landing on this one, as I was getting frustrated with downloading 'office suite' and ending up with 365 again and having to delete everything from my PC again, so it could well be you could download more recent versions of Word etc separately and that it works. I only tried the separate versions once I got to October 14 2025. To be quite frank, now it's working, I don't want to risk going to a more recent version and downloading Word etc separately in case they don't work. This has already taken up a considerable amount of my weekend!
I previously tried Microsoft support - completely useless, chat - completely useless, phone - just AI - you cannot speak to a person. I tried to find somewhere on the website to raise a complaint, but could find nothing, so I instead reported Microsoft to Microsoft as being a technical support scam - this is the only way I could see you could make a complaint and I described their actions re. 365 as being a scam and basically ransomwear. I invite you to do the same!
Good luck everyone and Microsoft - you are despicable!
It did to some extent, so thanks very much.
I ended up having to go back to version 16.102 from October 14 2025 and instead of clicking on 'office suite', I clicked on the individual downloads for Word, Excel etc. All the applications are now working fully on my PC, there is no mention of 365, instead it says the version is Office Home & Student 2021.
I had previously tried more recent versions such as the one suggested, but each time Microsoft 365 was downloaded. I ended up skipping a few versions before landing on this one, as I was getting frustrated with downloading 'office suite' and ending up with 365 again and having to delete everything from my PC again, so it could well be you could download more recent versions of Word etc separately and that it works. I only tried the separate versions once I got to October 14 2025. To be quite frank, now it's working, I don't want to risk going to a more recent version and downloading Word etc separately in case they don't work. This has already taken up a considerable amount of my weekend!
I previously tried Microsoft support - completely useless, chat - completely useless, phone - just AI - you cannot speak to a person. I tried to find somewhere on the website to raise a complaint, but could find nothing, so I instead reported Microsoft to Microsoft as being a technical support scam - this is the only way I could see you could make a complaint and I described their actions re. 365 as being a scam and basically ransomwear. I invite you to do the same!
Good luck everyone
Thanks for the follow-up. Which version of macOS do you have? The version of the OS will also affect which Microsoft Office version you can run.
Thanks for the additional info.