Office 2007 Product Key Problems

Seems there is a bit of an issue with the MSDN Product Keys for Office 2007.

Several of the Office products share the same Product Key issued by MSDN; "Office 2007 Desktop Programs" is used for Groove. InfoPath, and OneNote and both Project and Visio share another one.

When I went to activate the assorted application on my workstation it failed for InfoPath, OneNote, and Project (Groove and Visio activated without a hitch). After some looking around I was able to find a thread in the managed MSDN newsgroups on this topic. Looks like several users have reported this problem.

My guess is that the licensing servers are unable to recognize which product is being activated and it assumes that you are trying to re-activate the same product again and again. They also don't seem to know these are MSDN keys that should be allowed several installations (see MSDN Licensing FAQ)

I was able to get OneNote activated over the phone (it was the only application I needed ASAP) after I explained the problem. Of course your mileage may vary.

Update: This seems to have been fixed. Also, I've turned comments off due to people using the comments to request and publish product keys. Go pirate somewhere else guys.

Posted: Tuesday, November 14, 2006 9:23 PM by MarcLaFleur with 9 comment(s)

Comments

# re: Office 2007 Product Key Problems @Wednesday, November 15, 2006 3:11 AM

Did Microsoft end up reimbursing you for wasting your time with this crud?

Activation Warrior

# re: Office 2007 Product Key Problems @Wednesday, November 15, 2006 4:46 AM

Same here. Needed to call Microsoft to activate groove over the phone and now Project refuses to activate!

The CynicalDoctor

# re: Office 2007 Product Key Problems @Monday, November 20, 2006 4:38 PM

i have the same problem with the activation. Currently i'm out of business hours for using the phone. That's really great!

McHep

# re: Office 2007 Product Key Problems @Monday, November 20, 2006 8:35 PM

There's a second problem: the current key does not work on Windows 2003 Server (my main development machine).

I installed Office Professional 2007 on my laptop running Vista, but after I installed it on my desktop running Windows 2003 Server I get the following error:

"This copy of Microsoft Office Word cannot be used on Terminal Server. Please contact your local authorized Microsoft retailer for more information."

I found the problem described in this KB article:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx/kb/925098

So it looks the exact same issue occured for Office 2007 beta.  I tried to get a new key (for Windows 2003 Server) from MSDN support but after calling them they told me:

1) Try to uninstall and re-install.  Lost time and did that, it did not help.

2) Wait for the new keys that will be published on Tuesday 11/20.  Want to bet that the new keys will address the problem you describe above but will not address the Windows 2003 Server issue?

3) They can't read the KB I am mentioning above.  They don't have access to the KBs.

Is anybody from Microsoft and MSDN reading?  Can you:

1) Post on MSDN a Office 2007 Professional key that works for Windows 2003 Server?

2) Update your support dept so they open a ticket with you when a new problem is discovered?  I tried to escalate but the responses I got are listed above (I called three different times).

Emmanuel Huna

# re: Office 2007 Product Key Problems @Tuesday, November 21, 2006 1:50 PM

I hate to say I'm right, but of course, I'M RIGHT!

I got the new keys from MSDN this morning and it didn't help at all.  I still get the message:

"This copy of Microsoft Word cannot be used on Terminal Server.  Please contact your local authorized Microsoft retailer for more information"

Ok, let's try calling MSDN support again...

Emmanuel Huna

# re: Office 2007 Product Key Problems @Wednesday, November 22, 2006 6:00 PM

For anyone who stumbles upon this issue - here's the relevant KB article:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx/kb/924622/en-us?FR=1

It basically means that you need a volume license registration key for Office Professional 2007 - the key provided on the MSDN site won't work.

Of couse, we have now been struggling for a day with the vendor (CDW) and Microsoft to get their act together so we can have Office Professional 2007 running on Windows 2003 Server.

In the last conference call the Microsoft representative (based in India from what I can tell) told us that we need "the media" to have the volume license key working.

One more thing: the MSDN site will refer to the software as "Office Professional 2007", while the eopen.microsoft.com site and the vendor will call it "Office Professional Plus".  The Microsoft representative from India said they are the same.

I feel I have learnt a bit about all of these licensing issues, but I still don't have Office Professional 2007 working on my Windows 2003 Server (even though we've paid everything we had to pay).

Emmanuel Huna

# re: Office 2007 Product Key Problems @Thursday, December 21, 2006 5:27 PM

Microsoft Office  product

ali

# re: Office 2007 Product Key Problems @Wednesday, December 27, 2006 1:18 PM

struggled today with the Office2007 Ent on a W2KSR2 and got the same error, strange thing is when i delete the regkey under registration the thing works till next restart of any office application

wlamot

# re: Office 2007 Product Key Problems @Friday, January 12, 2007 12:01 PM

I am experiencing the same problem as wlamot.  R2 Term Server, Office 2007 Ent VL downloaded from MSDN and installed with the VL license key provided by MSDN, and I get the same message.

Does anyone have a resolution?

thanks,

-Jeff  

Jeff Winters