Purchased an HP laptop with a Microsoft Office Lifetime License - but now it reflects unlicensed....

The symptoms indicate that the preinstalled Office is now in an unlicensed state and there is no valid license associated with any of the Microsoft accounts being used. When Office shows Unlicensed Product and no matching subscription or product appears under any account, the only supported options are:

1. Verify whether any valid Office/Microsoft 365 entitlement exists
   1. Close all Office apps.
   2. Go to the Subscriptions page at account.microsoft.com/services and sign in with each Microsoft account that might have been used on the laptop.
   3. Check under Subscriptions and Cancelled subscriptions for any Microsoft 365 or Office product.
   4. If no active subscription or perpetual Office license appears under any account, there is no consumer license currently attached to those accounts.
2. Check for multiple or conflicting Office installations
   1. Open Control Panel → Programs and Features (or Settings → Apps → Installed apps on Windows 11/10).
   2. Search for Office and remove any duplicate or unused Office versions as described in “Step 2: Check for multiple copies of Office”.
   3. Restart the device.
   4. Run an Online Repair on the remaining Office installation if available.
3. Run the Microsoft 365 activation troubleshooter (if using Microsoft 365)
   1. On Windows 10 or later, run the Microsoft 365 activation troubleshooter from the article “Unlicensed Product and activation errors in Office”.
   2. Follow the prompts to detect and fix activation issues.
4. Confirm activation status and sign in with the correct account
   1. Open an Office app (for example, Word).
   2. Go to File → Account.
   3. If prompted, sign in with the Microsoft account that actually shows an active Office/Microsoft 365 subscription on the Subscriptions page.
   4. If Office still shows Unlicensed Product after signing in with an account that has no Office product, activation cannot succeed.

If none of the accounts show an Office or Microsoft 365 product under Subscriptions, and activation continues to fail after the above steps, then there is no valid consumer license for Microsoft to activate. In that case, the only supported resolution is to obtain a legitimate Office/Microsoft 365 license (for example, by purchasing a new subscription or retail Office product) and then sign in with that account to activate.

If the device was sold with wording such as “lifetime Office license” but no corresponding product appears in any Microsoft account and Office cannot be activated, this typically indicates that the bundled license was not a standard consumer license. In such scenarios, the remedy must be pursued with the seller, because Microsoft cannot activate Office without a valid license attached to an account.

References:

• Unlicensed Product and activation errors in Office
• Activate Office for Windows
• installed MS office 2024, got 2021, how to fix this? - Microsoft Q&A
• Can't activate Office - Microsoft Q&A
• http://offline.officeapps.live.com/outage.html - Microsoft Q&A
• Activate Office 2024 - Microsoft Q&A
• Can't type in Word documents - Microsoft Q&A