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Troubles with Shared Computer Activation Office 365 / Office 2016

Anonymous
2017-06-01T08:43:09+00:00

Dear TechNet community,

We've recently implemented Office 365 / Office 2016 using Shared Computer Activation.

We're using a VDI based solution from Citrix, called XenDesktop, in which users sometimes report they're Office does not activate.

The activation in basis works fine. The user starts Office, the Office 365 online activation service gets contacted and the license gets assigned. Upon assigning the license the following 2 files get created (GUID is variable and randomly generated):

%localappdata%\Microsoft\Office\16.0\Licensing{149DBCE7-A48E-44DB-8364-A53386CD4580}.authString.txt

and

%localappdata%\Microsoft\Office\16.0\Licensing{149DBCE7-A48E-44DB-8364-A53386CD4580}.signingCert.txt

However: sometimes, the activation apparently does not take place. Leaving the user with an unlicensed copy of Office 2016.

When that happens the user gets the following message (bare with me, its in dutch. But i reckon you get the picture):

Technet wouldn't let me embed the image, so i'm sorry for the 3rd party upload: http://i.imgur.com/A1ifAcx.jpg

Also, the files which normally get created in the %localappdata% folder named above do not get created.

When the user the fills in his/her Office 365 email adres in above prompt, the files in the %localappdata% folder get created and the activation process continues just fine.

Is there perhaps any way we can force the activation taking place? With some kind of script / executable perhaps?

Is there any logging we can check whenever the activation does not take place?

And ow yes, before i forget to mention, we do have the following GPO in place:

"Automatically activate Office with federated organization credentials"

Also: the computer does have a working internet connection when the activation fails.

Your help will be greatly appreciated! 

Greetings,

Teun

ps. We are using ADFS as SSO method for Office 365.

Microsoft 365 and Office | Subscription, account, billing | For home | Windows

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Anonymous
2017-06-21T07:10:09+00:00

Hi Robert,

Sorry for my late response.

I haven't tried out your latest suggestion yet, but I think we've found a workaround.

As mentioned in my original post whenever the activation takes place 2 files get generated:

%localappdata%\Microsoft\Office\16.0\Licensing<GUID>.authString.txt

and

%localappdata%\Microsoft\Office\16.0\Licensing<GUID>.signingCert.txt

These files get based on the user activating the product in conjunction with the computer the activation takes place on.

We've found that when we persist the %localappdata%\Microsoft\Office\16.0\Licensing folder in the user profile whenever the user logs into a different computer and starts a part of Office (e.g. Word, Excel, etc.); the original activation files get renamed to:

%localappdata%\Microsoft\Office\16.0\Licensing<GUID>.authString.txt.previous

and

%localappdata%\Microsoft\Office\16.0\Licensing<GUID>.signingCert.txt.previous

So persisting the above named directory seems to change the success rate of the activation process, to 100% in fact. I've made the change about a week ago. Ever since we haven't seen any failed activation anymore.

Greetings,

Teun

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  1. Anonymous
    2017-06-02T13:41:35+00:00

    Thanks Rena!

    Looking forward to your response.

    Greetings,

    Teun

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  2. Anonymous
    2017-06-02T11:55:20+00:00

    Hi Teun,

    Thanks for the updates. Please give us some time to look into this issue.

    Regards,

    Rena

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  3. Anonymous
    2017-06-02T10:11:27+00:00

    Hi Rena,

    Thanks for your reply!

    To answer your questions:

    1. Are the users using federated accounts to login into the computer?

    Yes, they are.

    1. To check if the SSO is deployed fine, please check if the users can login into the Office 365 portal automatically.

    Yes, whenever the problem occurs the AFDS SSO when logging in at https://login.microsoftonline.com/ works just fine. While automatically logging in on the Outlook 2016 client does not.

    Greetings,

    Teun

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  4. Anonymous
    2017-06-01T12:28:16+00:00

    Hi Teun,

    The licensing token that is stored on the shared computer is valid only for a few days. Then Office will contact the Office Licensing Service to get a new licensing token.

    As you are using SSO, if the user uses a federated account to login into Windows, he may see the message appears on the first use. After the first activation, the message should not appear again.

    If you are using SSO but the users can't automatically activate office, to narrow down the issue, please provide the information below:

    1. Are the users using federated accounts to login into the computer?
    2. To check if the SSO is deployed fine, please check if the users can login into the Office 365 portal automatically.

    Thanks,

    Rena

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