The problem: you had an Office 365 trial version or a subscription and switched to a different subscription or a perpetual license but are always being asked to sign in to activate the old license.
Or you switched from Office 365 Home or Personal subscription to an Office 365 Business subscription but are missing some business features because the license keeps reverting to the Home license.
To fix this, you need to remove the license for the Office version you no longer use. You can use the Support and Recovery Assistant (SaRA) to remove the license or the following steps (which are faster).
The steps below work with 64-bit Windows and 64-bit Office.
- Type cmd on the start menu and open the Command prompt when it comes up.
- Paste this line in the window (right click to paste)
cscript "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office16\OSPP.VBS" /dstatus - The Command windows will list the licenses installed on your computer, showing you the last 5 characters of the product key linked to the license. The subscription version will say 'subscription' in the name.
- Paste the next command, replacing the xxxxx with the last 5 characters to remove the subscription license.
cscript "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office16\OSPP.VBS" /unpkey:XXXXX - Repeat for each license you want to remove.
For 64-bit Windows and 32-bit Office, use the following commands:
If you have the 32-bit version, you need to use the 32-bit path for Office:
cscript "C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Office\Office16\OSPP.VBS" /dstatus
Use this line to remove the license, replacing the X's with the last 5 characters of the license key.
cscript "C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Office\Office16\OSPP.VBS" /unpkey:XXXXX
You may also have one entry listed as grace edition. You can remove it but it shouldn't cause problems. If you want to remove it, you may need to restart the Command prompt using Run as Administrator first.