LTSC Wordand Excel not activating

Question

We have a handful of LTSC licenses for both Word and Excel, but after installing, they won't activate the LTSC Licensing. Instead, it gives a message stating "This product key is for the volume-licensed cersion of Microsoft Word/Excel LTSC, which isn't currently installed. To use this product key, contact your administrator."

We've only been able to find information pointing towards using the Office Customization Tool and Office Deployment Tool, which we already are.

Thank you in advance for any help.

Answer 1

Hi, Sawyer Bishop

Welcome to Microsoft Q&A forum.

I understand your frustration at the moment regarding the issue with LTSC licenses. This typically occurs when there's a mismatch between the volume license key and the installed Office version, often due to remnants of previous installations or an incorrect deployment configuration. Here are some workarounds you can try to resolve it:

Verify Installation and Activation Status

First, check what's installed and the current activation state. This helps confirm if a non-volume licensed version of Office is causing the conflict.

• Check Installed Programs: In Control Panel > Programs and Features, verify that only Microsoft Office LTSC Professional Plus 2024 or Microsoft Office LTSC Standard 2024 is listed. If you see a different SKU like "Office Home and Business 2024," you have a mixed installation.
• Check Activation Status: Run a command to check the license status.
  • Open a Command Prompt as an administrator.
  • Run this command and look for the product description and license status:

        cscript "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office16\OSPP.VBS" /dstatus
    

  • If you see a product line that does not match your LTSC 2024 license, you need to remove the incorrect key. Use the last five characters of that key to uninstall it:

        cscript "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office16\OSPP.VBS" /unpkey:XXXXX
    

Reinstall Office Using the Volume License Configuration

The most reliable solution is a clean installation of Office LTSC 2024 using the Office Deployment Tool (ODT) with a correctly configured XML file that specifies your volume license key.

Here is a sample configuration.xml file for installing Office LTSC Professional Plus 2024 with a MAK key. Ensure you are using the PerpetualVL2024 channel and the correct Volume product ID.

<Configuration>
 <Add OfficeClientEdition="64" Channel="PerpetualVL2024">
  <Product ID="ProPlus2024Volume" PIDKEY="#####-#####-#####-#####-#####">
   <Language ID="en-us" />
  </Product>
 </Add>
 <RemoveMSI />
 <Display Level="None" AcceptEULA="TRUE" />
</Configuration>

Key elements in your configuration file:

Configuration Element	Purpose and Required Value
Channel	Must be set to PerpetualVL2024 for LTSC 2024 .
Channel	Must be set to PerpetualVL2024 for LTSC 2024 .
Product ID	Must be a volume license ID (e.g., ProPlus2024Volume, Standard2024Volume) .
PIDKEY	Insert your 25-character Multiple Activation Key (MAK) here .
RemoveMSI	Automatically removes previous Windows Installer (MSI) versions of Office .

To perform the installation:

• Download the latest Office Deployment Tool from the Microsoft Download Center .
• Save your configuration.xml file in the same folder as the ODT's setup.exe.
• Open an elevated Command Prompt, navigate to the folder, and run:

setup.exe /configure configuration.xml

Hope this helps. Feel free to get back if you have other questions.

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