How to Remove Office Licenses from Windows

A user wanted to upgrade his Office software and mistakenly purchased Office Home, which doesn't include Outlook. Microsoft refunded the purchase and he purchased Office Home and Business. The problem? The Office apps all said “Office Home” and Outlook was from his older version of Office.

To fix this, we needed to remove the Office Home license from his computer. With older versions of Office, you'd run a VBS script to view the last 5 characters in the license code, then run it again to remove that license.  That method no longer works, and was replaced by a PowerShell script. It works  the same: open PowerShell, find the license ID then run it again to remove the license.

1.  Start typing PowerShell on the start menu.
2. When it comes up, choose Run as Administrator
   
3. If this is your first time using PowerShell, run one of the following commands to allow *.ps1 files to run. Click the y key to accept the change.To set the permissions for all PowerShell scripts in the future:
   Set-ExecutionPolicy RemoteSigned
   
   If you only want to give permission to the current session, use the following. When you close PowerShell, the permissions are removed.
   Set-ExecutionPolicy RemoteSigned -Scope Process
   
4. Next, you need to switch the directory to the office directory. Type or paste this line in PowerShell and click Run.
   cd "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office16\"
   
5. Next, type or paste this line in PowerShell:
   ./vnextdiag.ps1 -action list
   
   The list action returns information about each Office license installed, including the following:
   "Version": "5",
   "Type": "User|Subscription",
   "Product": "O365HomePremRetail",
   "LicenseId": "CWW_[long GUID] "
6. Copy the LicenseId code, including the quotes.
   
   The license ID will begin with CWW if you have a consumer license or EWW if you have a business subscription.
7. Then type or paste this line in PowerShell, pasting the licenseId GUID at the end.
   ./vnextdiag.ps1 -action remove -LicenseId [the GUID from the last line]
   It will look like this:
   ./vnextdiag.ps1 -action remove -LicenseId "CWW_cd64618d-more-characters- c355df42706e5acf8"
8. A message will come up after it removes the license:
   Removed license with Id CWW_cd64618d-more-characters- c355df42706e5acf8

If you have other licenses to remove, repeat the -action remove line. When you’re finished, close PowerShell.

If you have both a consumer and a business subscription, both should be listed when you get the license list. While you can remove the consumer license, it will be added back if you are signed in using your Microsoft account.