Issue activating Office LTSC Professional Plus 2024

Question

Issue activating Office LTSC Professional Plus 2024

Daryl Gorton 171

Hello community!

I'm dealing with a very frustrating issue trying to activate a very expensive copy of Microsoft Office LTSC Professional Plus 2024. Every time I open the Access application, it prompts for a product key:

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So I go ahead and enter the product key provided to me FROM the Microsoft 365 Admin center. Everything seems fine and it seems to activate:

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NOPE! As soon as I reboot to run updates or log back into Windows, I get prompted with the same annoying window to activate my product. Now something to note, this only happens when using Access. When using any other the Office applications, like Word, I don't get prompted to activate. Upon checking the activation status from within Word or Excel, I can see that it is always activated. But notice how it says "Microsoft Office Home and Business 2024":

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Why is it that only Access is recognized as a Office LTSC Professional Plus 2024 product, while the rest of the suite seems to appear as a Home and Business 2024 suite? I have the invoice to prove I paid for the LTSC version, I have the LTSC key in my Microsoft 365 Admin portal, why can't I activated the one product I actually need?

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Answer 1

Daryl Gorton 171

Hello Tom and Huy,

Thank you both for the reply. I did confirm that Office LTSC Professional Plus 2024 is the only office product installed, so I'm not sure where the Home and Business:

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Is there somewhere in the registry I can check to see if there are other Office products remnants somewhere?

Something I did notice during my troubleshooting is that it seems to only happen to this one user under their Windows profile. If I log in as another user, the activation seems to stick. When this specific user logs in, the activation seems to break. Unfortunately this is the one user who uses this computer.

Huy, I'll try your command prompt activation suggestion.

Thank you.

Huy-K 11,950 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator

2025-08-28T02:46:36.26+00:00
Dear @Daryl Gorton,

Good day!

If the above steps do not work, kindly try these steps:

Clear Cached Credentials for the Affected User

Sometimes Office stores activation tokens or credentials per user. Try to run these in Command Prompt (Run as Administrator):

cmdkey /list

Then remove any Office-related credentials:

cmdkey /delete:<target>

Reset Office Licensing for That User

Run these commands in:

cd "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office16" cscript ospp.vbs /dstatus cscript ospp.vbs /unpkey:<Last 5 characters of installed key> cscript ospp.vbs /inpkey:<Your LTSC Key> cscript ospp.vbs /act

Delete Office Activation Cache

Press Windows + R > Type: %localappdata%\Microsoft\Office\Licensing

Delete all contents inside the Licensing folder.

This clears any corrupted or stale activation tokens that might be causing the issue.

Restart the computer.

Open Microsoft Access.

If prompted, re-enter the Office LTSC Professional Plus 2024 product key.

Optionally, re-run the activation script:

cscript "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office16\OSPP.VBS" /inpkey:<Your LTSC Key> cscript "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office16\OSPP.VBS" /act

Create a New Windows Profile

If the issue persists, consider creating a fresh Windows profile for the user and migrating their data. This often resolves profile-specific activation issues.

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Answer 2

Dear @Daryl Gorton,

Good day! Thank you for posting your question in the Microsoft Q&A forum.

We apologize for any inconvenience you may encounter when using our services/ products. Based on your description:

Why this happens

Home & Business 2024 (Retail) activates the core apps (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, OneNote) via your account/product key and shows “Product Activated” there. This consumer SKU does not include Access.
You also have Office LTSC Professional Plus 2024 (Volume) bits on the machine (at least for Access). LTSC uses volume‑license activation (KMS or MAK) and a different servicing channel (PerpetualVL2024). When Windows restarts, the Office licensing service prefers the retail license for the shared apps, leaving Access unlicensed—hence the repeated “Enter your product key” just for Access.

Best practice is one licensing type per device. Mixing Retail (consumer) and Volume (LTSC) on the same machine often leads to the inconsistent branding/activation you’re seeing. The most stable fix is to standardize the install.

Kindly try these following steps:

Check Installed Office Versions:

Go to Control Panel > Programs and Features and verify if both Office Home and Business 2024 and Office LTSC Professional Plus 2024 are listed.
Look for entries like:
- Microsoft Office Home and Business 2024
- Microsoft Office LTSC Professional Plus 2024
If both are listed, this confirms a conflicting installation. Uninstall Home and Business 2024 to avoid conflicts.

Use Volume Activation Tools:

If you have a MAK or KMS key for LTSC, use the Volume Activation Management Tool (VAMT) or run this command in Command Prompt (Run as Administrator):

cscript "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office16\OSPP.VBS" /inpkey:<Your LTSC key> cscript "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office16\OSPP.VBS" /act" /act

Verify Key Type:

Double-check that the key from the Microsoft 365 Admin Center is indeed for Office LTSC Professional Plus 2024 and not a Microsoft 365 subscription key.

Reinstall Office LTSC Only:

If the issue persists, uninstall all Office products and reinstall only Office LTSC Professional Plus 2024 using the correct deployment tool and configuration XML.

Here are some references:

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Huy-K 11,950 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator

2025-08-31T00:16:21.5666667+00:00

Dear @Daryl Gorton,

We hope you're doing well.

We just wanted to follow up and see if the steps we provided helped the issue you were facing.

We haven’t heard back from you yet, and we want to make sure everything is working smoothly on your end. If you’re still experiencing any difficulties or have any questions, please don’t hesitate to reach out—we’re here to help.

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Huy-K 11,950 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator

2025-08-31T23:24:14.7966667+00:00

Dear @Daryl Gorton,

We hope this message finds you well.

This is our second follow-up to ensure that your issue has been resolved. Our goal is to make your experience as smooth and seamless as possible. If the issue persists or if you encounter any new challenges, we kindly ask that you share more details about the steps you are currently taking. We are always happy to assist whenever needed.

While we await your response, we will continue monitoring other customer inquiries on the forum to provide support where needed. Should you have any further questions or updates, please feel free to tag @Huy-K in your reply so we can respond promptly and thoroughly.

We look forward to hearing from you soon.

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Answer 3

Tom van Stiphout 40,201 MVP Volunteer Moderator

I agree this seems to be an Access-specific problem. To work around it, I would assume that there are remnants of a previous installation on your machine, and I would try to remove those. Control Panel > Programs and Features.

One alternative is to use Microsoft Hyper-V to create a Virtual Machine which by definition is a virgin machine and the registration may work better. Not a final solution perhaps, but at least it would confirm that Access can be registered on such system.

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Issue activating Office LTSC Professional Plus 2024

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