Urgent problem about License problem.

Question

When I open any of my office apps (word, excel, etc), none of them can be edited with a message: "License required. Your admin needs to assign an office licence to this device so you can edit your files."

I have a very urgent deadline, and this is really annoying, and I cannot talk to any "real" in-person support; this is very frustrating.

Answer 1

This essentially means

1. You are using a business version of Microsoft Office
2. While the software may be installed on your machine, an underlying license has not been assigned for the software to work.

Can you share how you came to get this Microsoft Office?

If its purchased for your company and installed on your machine then, you (if you are admin), or your company admin needs to assign a Microsoft365 license to you, examples of these licenses are Microsoft365 Standard, Microsoft365 Apps for Business, Office365 E3, Microsoft365 App for Enterprises.

One remote possibility is you acquired the license (very highly discounted) via online sellers. Unfortunately, many of these highly discounted licenses are unused corporate or educational licenses peddled on the side by dubious company admins, and the license can be pulled anytime when discovered or used by the actual owners. As such we have seen licenses stop working a few months into their purchase although many of these sellers claim lifetime or permanent license usage. May not be your case.

There may be other possibilities but these are the ones I can think of at the moment.

Regards

Answer 2

Hello Lubo Liu,

Welcome to the Microsoft Community, thank you for supporting Microsoft products.

I understand that when you open any Office application, they cannot be edited and display the message "License required. Your admin needs to assign an Office license to this device so you can edit your files."

I understand you have urgent work to complete recently, and this inconvenience is frustrating. I understand your feelings, and we will do our best to assist you.

First, to better assist you, we may need more information.

Could you let us know which version of Office you are using? Is it a personally purchased version of Office or Microsoft 365, or is it a license assigned by your organization? You can provide us with the specific version information by clicking on File -> Account. Under Product Information on the right, you can see the detailed information about Office. You can send us a screenshot of this page.

While we work on solving the problem, you can use the Office web version, which is completely free and does not require a license. Although its features are somewhat different from the desktop client, it usually meets most work requirements.

Here is the link : Microsoft 365 Online

However, this community primarily provides assistance through replies and follow-ups. Due to time zone differences, our responses may sometimes be delayed. Additionally, solving user issues may require careful verification and repeated communication. To get technical support more quickly, you may also choose to contact Microsoft’s real-time support team for activation and subscription issues.

If you would like to contact an online agent to provide you with one-on-one assistance, in order to protect your user's private information and locate the issue, contacting an online agent requires a few action steps, please refer to the steps below:

Go to the following Web site: Contact - Microsoft Support

(Monday to Friday: 9am to 6pm. Saturday and Sunday: 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.)

• Type contact in the search box.
• Select Contact Support in the bottom (sign in to your personal Microsoft account).
• Under Products and services, select Microsoft 365 and Office.
• Under Category, select Manage my subscription.
• Go to Confirm.
• Select Chat with a support representative.

I hope the above information is useful to you, don't hesitate to contact me if you are unsure about anything or need help.

Best wishes

Ian - MSFT | Microsoft Community Support Specialist