Office 2007 Professional refuses to install on Windows 10 Professional: it says the key is not genuine. But it IS genuine!!!

Question

Hello

I have Windows 10 Professional 64bit on a Lenovo laptop on which I need to run Office 2007 Professional - and not anything else, for compatibility purposes. I have 2 other laptops with the exact same setup Windows 10 Pro/Office 2007 working perfectly fine, along with various old versions of Visual Studio. Compatibility matters a lot.

However, on this brand new laptop that replaces one that was stolen, after having had problems activating Windows (resolved by activating after a phone call) I'm now having a problem installing Office 2007 Pro!!

I thought it may be due to the license still being "bound" to the stolen laptop, so I purchased another license, still shrink wrapped.

I have the license in hand, with the Microsoft Certificate of Authenticity color sicker and QR code, and unless counterfeiters have grown an interest in 13 years old software, I'm 100% positive it is legit. It says X13-90658 and it has another number starting with 00132- and ending in -899 below the license key. I'd prefer not to post my license key to avoid problems.

I have a license for each installation of Office 2007 on my laptops. I can NOT install any other version for compatibility reasons (interfacing with scripts). Now I have 2 licenses for this laptops, 0 of which allow me to install...

What can I do? Office 2007 is not exactly sold anymore... so I don't think I can just go to a Microsoft Store.

Thanks for any help!

Answer 1

@Devereaux

According to the official document, Office 2007 has reached the end of its support lifecycle.
So it would better to install the latest version of Office.

For personal suggestions:
If you get the license from Microsoft, please try to chat with Microsoft support to check the key for you.
You could also check if there is something wrong with the installation package.

Regards,
Erin

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Answer 2

Hello Erin

Unfortunately, as explained, it just can NOT be any other version of Office. Many other things can change- just not the version of Office. Installing the latest version would break a working software toolchain that depends on 2007.

The support lifecycle is not very important. Support is not needed, as long as the software bought can be kept working, in VmWare emulators if needed. But apparently, emulators are not needed, as Office 2007 can work fine on Windows 10 Pro 64 on other computers, including the latest 20H2 version (we carefully check against regression with major upgrades)

The problem seems to be purely due to the license.

So can something be done to make my legal license work? Or should I pirate the software I purchased (!!!)