license number not accepted

Question

Windows 11, Office 2019
My computer died, new motherboard, new hard drive with Windows 11.
Found the file used to do the install: setupproplus2019retail.x64.en-us
Ran it, installed, tried to enter the product key.
Entered the key from the original installation. But the dialog says only 25 characters allowed.
Well now,..., the key is 32 characters in length, not counting the dashes.
What can I do to activate Office 2019?

Edit: Is this, maybe, something that Microsoft has done to force people to switch to Office 365?
Or have I done something wrong in trying to get Office 2019 re-installed?

Answer 1

Hi @Bryan Kelly ,
I suggest you refer to this support article about Activate Office and Enter the product key:

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/activate-office-5bd38f38-db92-448b-a982-ad170b1e187e#bkmk_afo
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/where-to-enter-your-office-product-key-0a82e5ae-739e-4b92-a6f4-2ec780c185db

Just checking in to see if the information was helpful. Please let us know if you would like further assistance.

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Answer 2

Neither of the two links resulted in any progress.
Here is the text I saved, with obvious edits

PRODUCT ID: 00413-20010-73195-AA817
SKU ID: 12345678-9012-3456-7890-123456789012 edited line showing grouping and count
LICENSE NAME: Office 19, Office19ProPlus2019MSDNR_Retail edition
LICENSE DESCRIPTION: Office 19, RETAIL channel
LICENSE STATUS: ---LICENSED---
Last 5 characters of installed product key: Q7B86

The product ID is 20 characters while the SKU ID is 32 characters. Neither is the 25-character count that is requested.

Office 2019 is on my laptop with Windows 10. Is there a way to recover that key?
It was installed on my desktop until I updated to Windows 11 with an entirely new boot disk. My computer will not boot the Windows 10 disk. I don't know why.

Answer 3

Hi @Bryan Kelly ,
I suggest you check the status of Office license in PC, please follow these steps:
Search CMD, right-click the Command Prompt and run as administrator. Then copy and paste the command, click Enter at last:
cscript.exe "%ProgramFiles%\Microsoft Office\Office16\ospp.vbs" /dstatus
If you are running 32-bit Office on a 64-bit operating system:
cscript.exe "%ProgramFiles(x86)%\Microsoft Office\Office16\ospp.vbs" /dstatus

If you can find the Office 365 product key in list, try to remove it by typing the following command with the Last 5 characters of installed product key (I replace it with XXXXX, but what you type in is what you see on your computer) in this interface:
cscript.exe "%ProgramFiles%\Microsoft Office\Office16\ospp.vbs" /unpkey:XXXXX
If the 32bit version of Office installed on a 64bit operation, run the following command:
cscript.exe "%ProgramFiles(x86)%\Microsoft Office\Office16\ospp.vbs" /unpkey:XXXXX

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Answer 4

Very interesting.
Use this command from above:
cscript.exe "%ProgramFiles(x86)%\Microsoft Office\Office16\ospp.vbs" /dstatus
There are three versions of Office 2019. One a trial and two more. All have the same format as the one I showed. One of them was exactly the same.
So the problem of not having the right number of characters in the product ID and for the key remains.

I notice also, from your second image, the product ID is 20 characters, not 25 as the dialog for adding the key requires.

Obviously, there is something here I am not understanding.

Answer 5

Hi @Bryan Kelly ,
Prouct ID, SKU ID both are not the product key, you should find the product key for the Microsoft account for the Office 2019.
Where did you buy the Office 2019?

LICENSE NAME: Office 19, Office19ProPlus2019MSDNR_Retail edition  
LICENSE DESCRIPTION: Office 19, RETAIL channel  

Based on the text information, you're using Office 2019 retail version, and the product key is activaed. For Office 2019, you should assign the Product key to a Microsoft account and login the account in Office to activate the product.

Do you remember the account you have used to log in to Office?