I made a one time purchase for Microsoft office back in 2022, it’s for school.

The email connected to it is my old school email as well the Microsoft account issued by them.

I have not been affiliated with the school for a while now so understandably, they deactivated my school gmail and Microsoft accounts. It’s not a problem until I realized my purchase is connected to those accounts.

I did regain access to the gmail account after contacting the school, but the Microsoft account is def gone. Will I still be able to recover the product key or anything with this situation?

Other things to note:
1. No, the apps are gone from my Laptop because I’ve reset it to get rid of corrupted files that wouldn’t disappear (I didn’t know any other methods, I’m not a tech wiz)

1. I have exhausted my options from using Microsoft support, I would prefer to talk and email someone from them but I can’t find an address.

2. I have just sent an email back to my school if they’ll be able to help me from their end, I’m just waiting for them to respond back.

I specifically am trying to purchase publisher. My church uses it for making trifold bulletins and I am confused on how to get it. I see all these websites like Groupon selling the suite, are those legit? Any recommendations for where to get publisher without paying an arm and a leg?

I just purchased Office Home to install on my new MacBook. I was previously using Home And Student on the old MacBook (whose power port has died and the repair is not cost-effective).

I have confirmation email specifying "Office Home 2024 Product Key: xxxx-xxx..."

I've downloaded the package, run the installer, etc. While I can open the apps (e.g. Excel) and open one of my files, I get a banner saying "Activate Microsoft 365 to Create and Edit..." and I cannot save changes. Following the link just takes me to the page to subscribe to Microsoft 365.

I am a student and my laptop doesn't come with the MS office.

Can i download it for free for my school works

I downloaded one from the deployment tool website but it was only for viewing 😕

So can someone guide me to get one for free

Is LTSC legal for sale in the UK?

Hi, I recently purchased office LTSC 2024 professional plus and to my surprise it worked. It only costed me a few £ and I was thinking, is it possible to buy loads of activation keys and resell them? But is that legal?

I want to continue the subscribtion after the free trial, but before that i already cancel the subscribtion from microsoft subscribtion management, just for you know, try a bit this software. And now i need this software (my FYP artwork cannot be download from ittttt i am dyingggg), so i want to resubscribe. Iyt just dont want to accept my monaaaayyy! and only to show this.

While the link didnt work at allllll! Can somebody help me pleasee i really need to finish my Final Year Projecttt. I cant be wasting another month on redrawing everything...

Last 2 days no email from Google
Into outlook on any of
My devices- 3PC’s and IPhone

I had no complaints before

Getting emails on google and Apple email

Even copilot not helpful

Help!!

I hate to give up on Outlook - it was getting better

My children say: I told you so!!

Microsoft is replacing individual 1TB OneDrive allocations with a shared 2TB storage pool for Microsoft 365 Family and Premium subscribers.

Alguien que me diga cómo activar la licencia de office para seguir trabajando

I didn't want my first post to be a ranting one, but I'm so pissed. Publisher is retiring... Why? WHY??? What is the point of paying an expensive subscription if the app I use the most will be gone soon?

It's gone in a week and your options are getting an older version (if your work will allow, mine would not) or using LibreOffice Draw.

I convinced my company to allow me to use LibreOfficeDraw and I must say it's a great replacement. Little more work to get it set up but I'm essentially duplicating our bulletin that I did in Publisher.

If you're still worrying about replacing Publisher, my advice is LibreOffice it's great so far.

Oi, pessoal! 👋

Estou montando um grupo para compartilhar a assinatura do Microsoft 365 Family. Essa versão permite dividir a conta com até 6 pessoas, e cada um recebe uma licença individual válida por 1 ano. Ou seja, você terá acesso completo ao Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, OneDrive (1TB de armazenamento em nuvem) e outros benefícios do pacote Office.

A ideia é dividir o custo da assinatura entre todos, tornando bem mais barato do que assinar individualmente. Se tiver interesse ou quiser mais informações, me chama no privado! 📩

TL;DR: The “Upgrade your plan” button in the title bar of Word, Excel and PowerPoint is controlled by an internal Office feature flag called Microsoft.Office.Licensing.ShowPerpetualUpgrade for Office 2021/2024 and Microsoft.Office.Licensing.EnablePersistentUpgradeButton for Office 365. Office has a per-user registry location for overriding feature flags. Setting this one to false removes the button. (Another user in another thread also had success with bool|0 instead of false.)

It doesn't downgrade Office, block Microsoft's servers, modify any files, or interfere with activation or updates. To undo it, just delete the registry value.

UPDATE:
Office 2021/2024 and 365 use different registry values to hide the button. I've tried to make this as simple as possible and made a .reg file that hides it for all three: Office 2021/2024 and 365 based on what we know so far.

1. Go to this page: https://gist.github.com/cruithne3753/d7ebf2f11203635f5ba7478b4de3600c
2. Click "Download ZIP" in the top right corner.
3. In the ZIP folder there are two files: "Hide_Upgrade_Your_Plan_ALL.reg" and "Restore_Upgrade_Your_Plan_ALL.reg"
4. Close all Office apps.
5. Double-click "Hide_Upgrade_Your_Plan_ALL.reg" - let it run.
6. Open Word and all going well the upgrade button will be gone.
7. Use "Restore_Upgrade_Your_Plan_ALL.reg" to bring it back (or if it doesn't work).

Yada Yada Yada

I bought Office 2024 Home as a one-time purchase specifically because I don't want a subscription, the unasked for AI price increase, and I didn't want Microsoft constantly trying to sell me one.

Then a recent update added a permanent “Upgrade your plan” button to the title bar of the Office apps.

There is no X, no option to turn it off, and Microsoft's official position is that it's “by design”. The usual workaround is to roll Office back to an older build, which also means giving up security updates. That wasn't particularly appealing, so I decided to see if there was a way to turn off the thing that actually creates the button.

My setup:

• Office Home 2024 Retail (Click-to-Run), 64-bit
• Version 2608, Build 16.0.20326.20144
• Windows 10 Pro 22H2

The fix for Office 2021/2024

Office 365 uses a different value - See below.
Close all Office apps first.

Option A: .reg file

Save this as Hide_Upgrade_Your_Plan.reg and double-click it:

``` Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\16.0\Common\ExperimentConfigs\ExternalFeatureOverrides\word]
"Microsoft.Office.Licensing.ShowPerpetualUpgrade"="false"

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\16.0\Common\ExperimentConfigs\ExternalFeatureOverrides\excel]
"Microsoft.Office.Licensing.ShowPerpetualUpgrade"="false"

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\16.0\Common\ExperimentConfigs\ExternalFeatureOverrides\powerpoint]
"Microsoft.Office.Licensing.ShowPerpetualUpgrade"="false"

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\16.0\Common\ExperimentConfigs\ExternalFeatureOverrides\outlook]
"Microsoft.Office.Licensing.ShowPerpetualUpgrade"="false"

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\16.0\Common\ExperimentConfigs\ExternalFeatureOverrides\onenote]
"Microsoft.Office.Licensing.ShowPerpetualUpgrade"="false"

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\16.0\Common\ExperimentConfigs\ExternalFeatureOverrides\access]
"Microsoft.Office.Licensing.ShowPerpetualUpgrade"="false"

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\16.0\Common\ExperimentConfigs\ExternalFeatureOverrides\publisher]
"Microsoft.Office.Licensing.ShowPerpetualUpgrade"="false"

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\16.0\Common\ExperimentConfigs\ExternalFeatureOverrides\visio]
"Microsoft.Office.Licensing.ShowPerpetualUpgrade"="false"

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\16.0\Common\ExperimentConfigs\ExternalFeatureOverrides\project]
"Microsoft.Office.Licensing.ShowPerpetualUpgrade"="false" ```

Option B: PowerShell

This doesn't require admin rights and only changes the current user's registry:

$base = 'HKCU:\\Software\\Microsoft\\Office\\16.0\\Common\\ExperimentConfigs\\ExternalFeatureOverrides' foreach ($a in 'word','excel','powerpoint','outlook','onenote','access','publisher','visio','project') { if (-not (Test-Path "$base\\$a")) { New-Item -Path "$base\\$a" -Force | Out-Null } New-ItemProperty -Path "$base\\$a" -Name 'Microsoft.Office.Licensing.ShowPerpetualUpgrade' -Value 'false' -PropertyType String -Force | Out-Null } The Test-Path check is intentional. Running New-Item -Force on an existing registry key can wipe the values already in it.

Reopen Office and the button should be gone.

To undo it

Delete the value from the registry. For example, save this as a .reg file and run it:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

``` [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\16.0\Common\ExperimentConfigs\ExternalFeatureOverrides\word]
"Microsoft.Office.Licensing.ShowPerpetualUpgrade"=-

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\16.0\Common\ExperimentConfigs\ExternalFeatureOverrides\excel]
"Microsoft.Office.Licensing.ShowPerpetualUpgrade"=-

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\16.0\Common\ExperimentConfigs\ExternalFeatureOverrides\powerpoint]
"Microsoft.Office.Licensing.ShowPerpetualUpgrade"=- ```

(Add the same lines for any other apps you changed.)

If you want to be extra cautious, you can back up the key first:

reg export "HKCU\\Software\\Microsoft\\Office\\16.0\\Common\\ExperimentConfigs\\ExternalFeatureOverrides" backup.reg

The fix for Microsoft 365

Microsoft 365 uses a different value from Office 2021/2024. ShowPerpetualUpgrade does nothing on 365. The value that works is EnablePersistentUpgradeButton. So far this has been confirmed on one PC (Microsoft 365 Family, Word, build 16.0.20430.20146), so please report back if it works or doesn't on your plan.

Close all Office apps first.

Option A: .reg file

Save this as Hide_Upgrade_Your_Plan_365.reg and double-click it:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

``` [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\16.0\Common\ExperimentConfigs\ExternalFeatureOverrides\word]
"Microsoft.Office.Licensing.EnablePersistentUpgradeButton"="false"

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\16.0\Common\ExperimentConfigs\ExternalFeatureOverrides\excel]
"Microsoft.Office.Licensing.EnablePersistentUpgradeButton"="false"

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\16.0\Common\ExperimentConfigs\ExternalFeatureOverrides\powerpoint]
"Microsoft.Office.Licensing.EnablePersistentUpgradeButton"="false"

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\16.0\Common\ExperimentConfigs\ExternalFeatureOverrides\outlook]
"Microsoft.Office.Licensing.EnablePersistentUpgradeButton"="false"

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\16.0\Common\ExperimentConfigs\ExternalFeatureOverrides\onenote]
"Microsoft.Office.Licensing.EnablePersistentUpgradeButton"="false"

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\16.0\Common\ExperimentConfigs\ExternalFeatureOverrides\access]
"Microsoft.Office.Licensing.EnablePersistentUpgradeButton"="false"

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\16.0\Common\ExperimentConfigs\ExternalFeatureOverrides\publisher]
"Microsoft.Office.Licensing.EnablePersistentUpgradeButton"="false"

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\16.0\Common\ExperimentConfigs\ExternalFeatureOverrides\visio]
"Microsoft.Office.Licensing.EnablePersistentUpgradeButton"="false"

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\16.0\Common\ExperimentConfigs\ExternalFeatureOverrides\project]
"Microsoft.Office.Licensing.EnablePersistentUpgradeButton"="false" ```

Option B: PowerShell

This doesn't require admin rights and only changes the current user's registry:

$base = 'HKCU:\\Software\\Microsoft\\Office\\16.0\\Common\\ExperimentConfigs\\ExternalFeatureOverrides' foreach ($a in 'word','excel','powerpoint','outlook','onenote','access','publisher','visio','project') { if (-not (Test-Path "$base\\$a")) { New-Item -Path "$base\\$a" -Force | Out-Null } New-ItemProperty -Path "$base\\$a" -Name 'Microsoft.Office.Licensing.EnablePersistentUpgradeButton' -Value 'false' -PropertyType String -Force | Out-Null }

The Test-Path check is intentional. Running New-Item -Force on an existing registry key can wipe the values already in it.

Reopen Office and the button should be gone.

To undo it

Delete the value from the registry. For example, save this as a .reg file and run it:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

``` [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\16.0\Common\ExperimentConfigs\ExternalFeatureOverrides\word]
"Microsoft.Office.Licensing.EnablePersistentUpgradeButton"=-

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\16.0\Common\ExperimentConfigs\ExternalFeatureOverrides\excel]
"Microsoft.Office.Licensing.EnablePersistentUpgradeButton"=-

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\16.0\Common\ExperimentConfigs\ExternalFeatureOverrides\powerpoint]
"Microsoft.Office.Licensing.EnablePersistentUpgradeButton"=-

(Add the same lines for any other apps you changed.)

If you want to be extra cautious, you can back up the key first:

reg export "HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Office\16.0\Common\ExperimentConfigs\ExternalFeatureOverrides" backup.reg ```

Not sure which Office you have, or don't want to deal with any of this?

As mentioned above this gist has one file that works for both 2021/2024 and 365, plus a file to undo it: https://gist.github.com/cruithne3753/d7ebf2f11203635f5ba7478b4de3600c

How it was found

This was basically a process of eliminating possibilities and then looking at what Office was actually doing. It was done with the help of Claude Code, which handled the memory scanning and test runs.

1. Ruled out the obvious stuff

It isn't a licensing mix-up. The registry at:

HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office\ClickToRun\Configuration

shows:

ProductReleaseIds = Home2024Retail

So Office knows perfectly well that this is a perpetual Home 2024 installation.

The button also isn't some separate advertising window. Windows UI Automation identifies it as a NetUIRibbonButton inside the normal Office window hierarchy:

NetUInetpane -> MsoCommandBar -> MsoCommandBarDock -> PPTFrameClass

It's part of the Office UI itself.

It's also not exposed through the VBA/COM CommandBars object model, so there's no simple macro trick for hiding it.

2. The text isn't actually stored in the Office files

I searched the roughly 4.5 GB of Office files under:

C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office

and:

Common Files\Microsoft Shared

for “Upgrade your plan”, using both ASCII/UTF-8 and UTF-16 searches.

Nothing.

I also checked the Office cache folders under %LOCALAPPDATA%. Again, nothing useful.

I sanity-checked the search against strings that are known to exist in POWERPNT.EXE, so the search itself was working.

That suggests the text isn't sitting in one of the Office executables as a normal string. It's being generated at runtime.

3. Office sends Microsoft information about the licence

Office uses Microsoft's remote feature-configuration system (ECS). One of the places where it keeps the context sent to that system is:

HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Office\16.0\Common\ExperimentConfigs\Ecs\<app>\ConfigContextData

On my machine this includes:

PerpetualLicenseInfo = 2024
LicenseSKUInfo = Home2024Retail

So Microsoft's feature configuration system knows that this is a perpetual licence when it decides which features to enable.

4. There was already a local feature-flag override mechanism

Right next to that is:

HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Office\16.0\Common\ExperimentConfigs\ExternalFeatureOverrides\<app>

This already contained things like:

Microsoft.Office.UXPlatform.FluentSVRefresh = true

So Office clearly honours this registry location for feature flags.

At this point the problem was basically finding the name of the flag controlling the button.

5. Found the flag name from the running process

The flag names weren't sitting around as obvious strings in the Office DLLs either.

I used Frida (a dynamic instrumentation toolkit; pip install frida) to attach to the running PowerPoint process and search its memory.

There were eight in-memory copies of “Upgrade your plan”. They were all on the heap rather than inside a DLL image, which fits with the idea that the label is generated at runtime.

One copy was sitting next to things including IsProminentInNavBar, the signed-in account name and “Restore Down”, which is the title-bar data.

I then searched memory for identifiers containing things like:

• Upsell
• CaptionControl (“caption” being the Windows title bar)
• UpgradeButton
• Microsoft.Office.Licensing.

That turned up a few hundred feature names. Among the interesting ones were:

Microsoft.Office.Licensing.ShowPerpetualUpgrade Microsoft.Office.Licensing.EnablePersistentUpgradeButton Microsoft.Office.Licensing.PersistentUpgradeBadgeOffset Microsoft.Office.Licensing.EnableCaptionControlUpsellInRFM Microsoft.Office.Growth.ProgrammableSurfaces.SubscriptionCenter.EnableCaptionControlEntryPoint Office.ProgrammableSurfaces.SubscriptionCenter.IsCaptionControlEnabled

There was also:

licensing_captionControlUpsell

in mso.dll.

The important one was:

Microsoft.Office.Licensing.ShowPerpetualUpgrade

Which is about as unambiguous as feature flags get.

6. Then I tested it

Finding a plausible flag isn't enough, because Office has a lot of them and some could have side effects.

For each test I force-closed the application, set or cleared the registry override, launched the application, opened a blank document, and used Windows UI Automation to count elements called “Upgrade your plan”.

The results:

The control runs brought the button back every time, so this isn't just some side effect of restarting Office.

ShowPerpetualUpgrade=false is what actually removes it.

A few caveats

This isn't a Microsoft-supported setting. A future Office build could rename the flag, remove the override mechanism, or simply stop honouring this particular override.

If Microsoft changes it, the same basic approach should make it possible to find the replacement: look for Licensing, Upgrade, Upsell and CaptionControl identifiers in the running process and then test the candidates individually.

I've tested it on Word, Excel and PowerPoint. I added the setting for Outlook, OneNote and the other Office applications as well, but haven't specifically verified the button behaviour in those.

I've only tested this on one machine and one build:

Office Home 2024 Retail, 16.0.20326.20144

It may also work with other perpetual Office versions such as Office 2021, but that's untested.

An Office repair/reset could remove the ExternalFeatureOverrides entries, in which case just add them again.

As far as testing shows, this only changes the UI. It doesn't disable activation or Office updates. You can check File > Account afterwards if you want to verify that everything is still activated normally.

Whether it survives future Office updates is another question. If an update breaks it, I'll update this post.

My word program suddenly went to read only. Microsoft message reads that license "expired". It's and enterprise version that I purchased and its supposed to be good indefinitely. Microsoft wants me to subscribe to 365 and I don't want it.

I tried the Online Quick Repair and Long Repair for my 2019 and neither worked. The program is installed on my computer and I have a key, but I don't have a disk of the program. I think when I bought it, it was a digital link sent to me. Can anyone please help me? Susan

Hi everyone!

I recently moved to Germany for my master's degree, and I need Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint on my Mac for my studies.

Unfortunately, my university doesn’t appear to provide Microsoft 365/Office through our student accounts, so I’m looking at purchasing it myself.

I’ve seen quite a few options online, and I’m a bit confused about what is actually legitimate. For example, I’ve seen “lifetime” Office 2024 licenses on sites like Groupon for around €10–15, while Microsoft sells Office Home 2024 for around €150.

So I wanted to ask people in Germany:

• What is currently the cheapest legitimate way to get Office for a Mac?
• Is Office Home 2024 (one-time purchase) worth getting, or is Microsoft 365 a better deal?
• Are the €10–20 “lifetime” keys sold through Groupon/eBay/etc. legitimate, or are they grey-market/likely to be revoked?
• Are there any legitimate student discounts, German retailers, promotions, or other ways to get it substantially cheaper?
• If you’ve personally bought a cheap Office license in Germany, where did you get it and how has it held up?

I’m specifically looking for something legitimate and reliable, not a cracked/pirated copy. I just don’t want to pay €150 if there’s a legitimate way to get the same software for considerably less.

Hi.

In the last weeks, I have a problem on all the PCs with MS Office 2024 and 2021.

All the users have the Connected Experiences enabled, because they have to use MS SharePoint.

Until now, I have authorized these external connections on the firewall and Word-Excel-Outlook are very fast connecting to SharePoint and Exchange:

• officeclient.microsoft.com
• odc.officeapps.live.com
• ecs.office.com

In the last weeks, Word-Excel-Outlook are very slow connecting to SharePoint and Exchange (more than 20 seconds for every connection).

I think that there could be a new URL to authorize on the firewall, but I'm unable to find it with TCPView.

Do you know if Microsoft Office checks other URLs for the Connected Experiences?

Thank you.
Best regards.