Problems activating Office 2013...

Question

Ok, for starters, yes, I know its a little out of date. The friend I;m working with has had it for a while, just never felt the urge to start using it, as he was comfortable with Windows Livemail (this guy is really, really opposed to change!), but here I am, trying to get him though this.

During the initial install, it asked him to sign into his Microsoft account. Surprisingly, he had one signed in & the 'new' Office Home & Business 2013 was now listed in his products. One we got it installed (I'll spare anyone the details of getting all his mail, contacts, etc., moved over from Livemail), it keeps asking him to activate it, Clicking the activate button brings up a sign into you account box, he does, enters the password & a box pops up saying;

Sorry, we can't connect to your account. Please try again later.

in the past 24 hours, we've tried probably more than a dozen times & get the same result.

I opened Word & Excel & tried through both of them & the same result. One thing that did seem odd, was that when going to File>Account, under account information, it shows Microsoft account, unlike my own version (Office 365, in case you're wondering), which shows my name & the account I'm signed in with.

On that page, we have tried signing out, but it still says Microsoft account on that page. I had hoped there was a way to activate by phone, but haven't found a way to do that, either.

Thanks!

Answer 1

Hello, texan767

Welcome to Microsoft Community.

It seems that your friend is having trouble activating Office 2013, and you want to provide some advice. You can let your friend know that there are good steps to try: Unlicensed Product and activation errors in Office - Microsoft Support, and that they should start by checking their network connection and to make sure they are not blocking Office activation. They should also temporarily disable any firewall or antivirus software they have installed to see if that helps.

Important: Please be advised that if you delay activating your antivirus program or firewall, your device may remain vulnerable to potential threats. As a precaution, we strongly recommend activating it immediately after the attempt. 

If these steps don't work, your friend can try using the Microsoft Support and Recovery Assistant, which is a free tool that can help diagnose and fix activation issues with Office. They can download it from the Microsoft website and follow the instructions to run it on their computer.

Please let me know if you have any other concerns.

Best regards

Yuhao Li

Microsoft Community Support