License questions - Windows 11 and Office 365

HI all, I am hoping you can help me figure out how to make my license info correct - I am in compliance as far as I know, but things are not reporting correctly in my MSFT account info and I want to make sure I am in compliance. Note, everything works fine, and every device I mention here shows as Activated. I also ran Licensingdiag.exe and confirmed it says L_GEN_STATE_IS_GENUINE.

Office 365 - I have a license that permits "use on up to 5 devices at the same time". I am using it on 4 devices, two Macs and two Parallels VMs, one on each Mac. I pay annually, and I purchased it through the Apple store. However, on my Microsoft account services and subscriptions page, it just shows two licenses used, one a Mac, one the other Mac's VM. I suspect this was because the second Mac was created my doing a migration direct from Mac to Mac; and both Macs use the same Windows 11 VM. So all 4 instances of Office 365 are registered to my email address of record for paying/accessing my MS account, yet only 2 show up. (I believe I was asked to "activate the new Mac or its VM when I first ran Word, and it said "Activated")

Windows 11 - My MS account page shows me having 3 devices registered - a Parallels VM, and 2 Dell laptops. I should have 4 devices; but the second VM has the same serial number as the other VM because I just copied and used the same VM as on the other Mac. Hence why it does not show up as a unique device, I think. The VMs say (Settings/Activation) "Windows is activated with a digital license need to your Microsoft account" So I have to add 1 VM device so it shows on the account page.

Windows 11 - With a digital license how many copies can I use? I assume I am in compliance with 4 devices, but I can't find where that is stated. I don't even know if these are using unique licenses or not, the account page just shows info about the 3 devices without any info on their license info.

Thanks! Whew this is confusing!

I can't say if the licenses are valid or not, but I can say, for Parallels on Mac, if you copy the 'real' files from one Mac to another, it does NOT change what Microsoft thinks is the hardware (as long as the versions of Parallels aren't that far off). So by the sounds, both VMs are technically using the same license since MS would see both as the same system.

If you decide you want them each to have their own license, you can't just change/update the license on one since again, MS sees them as the same. Therefore the only real way to get two licenses properly would be to create a new VM and refresh the install on one of the Macs. This probably wouldn't be worth the effort of setting things up, etc. so if it were me, I'd just leave the VMs alone and not worry about that.

I did something similar with Windows 10 VMs on Parallels, but after I copied the files and made sure they worked on the second system I no longer use the copy on the first system as I've retired it.

Awalt said:

HI all, I am hoping you can help me figure out how to make my license info correct - I am in compliance as far as I know, but things are not reporting correctly in my MSFT account info and I want to make sure I am in compliance. Note, everything works fine, and every device I mention here shows as Activated. I also ran Licensingdiag.exe and confirmed it says L_GEN_STATE_IS_GENUINE.

Office 365 - I have a license that permits "use on up to 5 devices at the same time". I am using it on 4 devices, two Macs and two Parallels VMs, one on each Mac. I pay annually, and I purchased it through the Apple store. However, on my Microsoft account services and subscriptions page, it just shows two licenses used, one a Mac, one the other Mac's VM. I suspect this was because the second Mac was created my doing a migration direct from Mac to Mac; and both Macs use the same Windows 11 VM. So all 4 instances of Office 365 are registered to my email address of record for paying/accessing my MS account, yet only 2 show up. (I believe I was asked to "activate the new Mac or its VM when I first ran Word, and it said "Activated")

Windows 11 - My MS account page shows me having 3 devices registered - a Parallels VM, and 2 Dell laptops. I should have 4 devices; but the second VM has the same serial number as the other VM because I just copied and used the same VM as on the other Mac. Hence why it does not show up as a unique device, I think. The VMs say (Settings/Activation) "Windows is activated with a digital license need to your Microsoft account" So I have to add 1 VM device so it shows on the account page.

Windows 11 - With a digital license how many copies can I use? I assume I am in compliance with 4 devices, but I can't find where that is stated. I don't even know if these are using unique licenses or not, the account page just shows info about the 3 devices without any info on their license info.

Thanks! Whew this is confusing!

Click to expand...

Regarding Windows - rule is simple - one digital licence, one device (vm counts as a device).

The MS account only shows pc installations that are logged in with your MS account. It does not even say if the installations are activated or not.

If you login with a local account, then those installations are not shown in MS account,

In short, the MS account does not show what is activated.



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Re. Office 365, strictly, you can only have as many installations as you like, but only 5 can be active at any one time. It gets a bit murky if you have a clone of a host OS with Office 365 installed to a virtual machine as both installations get seen as the same Office 365 installation as far as I can tell.

Truth is the MS account does not keep track of active installations very well. For Windows 11, I have it active on the Host OS, 3 Insider versions, a clone of Host plus an active copy on Windows 10 which is strictly 6 active copies but only 3 show in MS account. I have no idea why this is.

The most I can use at any one time is 3 (1 host + 2 vms) as I would need a lot more RAM to run more than 2 (plus more powerful pc),

In the end, it is all a moot point, as you will never run 5 versions at same time anyway.

If everything is activated, and not with some illegitimate KMS scheme, then I would not spend a minute worrying about it.

cereberus said:

In short, the MS account does not show what is activated.

Click to expand...

It actually does show what is activated by showing the device, i.e. If a device is listed, it is activated. You can see what devices are activated by Logging into your Microsoft Account and clicking Devices...



Here all four of the devices above are activated - two running Windows 11 (Dru21, Kids), two running Windows 10 (UX31, Yoga).

And if you click the dropdown arrow and click "See details" it will show your current OS and OS build. BTW, you can also find you device if location is on. Handy is someone steals your device.

Dru2 said:

It actually does show what is activated by showing the device, i.e. If a device is listed, it is activated. You can see what devices are activated by Logging into your Microsoft Account and clicking Devices...

View attachment 51242

Here all four of the devices above are activated - two running Windows 11 (Dru21, Kids), two running Windows 10 (UX31, Yoga).

And if you click the dropdown arrow and click "See details" it will show your current OS and OS build. BTW, you can also find you device if location is on. Handy is someone steals your device.

Click to expand...

Dru2 said:

It actually does show what is activated by showing the device, i.e. If a device is listed, it is activated. You can see what devices are activated by Logging into your Microsoft Account and clicking Devices...

View attachment 51242

Here all four of the devices above are activated - two running Windows 11 (Dru21, Kids), two running Windows 10 (UX31, Yoga).

And if you click the dropdown arrow and click "See details" it will show your current OS and OS build. BTW, you can also find you device if location is on. Handy is someone steals your device.

Click to expand...

This is not true.

Create a virtual machine and install Windows with an unactivated account and use an MS account.

You will see it is listed as a device regardless of whether it is activated or not.

cereberus said:

This is not true.

Create a virtual machine and install Windows with an unactivated account and use an MS account.

You will see it is listed as a device regardless of whether it is activated or not.

Click to expand...

Agree

-- a VM needs the same licensing considerations as a physical separate computer. Even if you want to run 4 concurrent VM's with identical "Virtual hardware" even on the same machine you would need 4 separate licenses.

Cheers
jimbo

With regard to the original question there seems to be two separate issues:

1. Why does the the Microsoft O365 activation/management system not recognise that Office has been installed on two separate Macs?

- The answer would appear (to me) to be that the Apple Migration Assistant was used to create the second O365 "duplicate installation". The Migration Assistant is designed to aid the transfer of installed applications, data etc. to a new Mac. To me 'transfer' NOT copy clearly implies that, unless the software licences permit multiple installations, that original software installation should be removed after a successful transfer has been confirmed. In this case, it appears that the Apple's software migration process has been so successful that the Microsoft's O365 administration system has not been able to detect that any hardware change has taken place and that two installations are in use. That may be because the two Mac computers appear so similar that they can't be distinguished; and/or because the two O365 installations are not been used concurrently. The only immediate 'solution' I can see is to download and run the Mac O365 installer on the second Mac, which should create a new association and register the second Mac's ID information.

2. Why do the Windows and O365 Activation Systems not recognise that 2 Windows VMs are in use?

- This implies that the original VM was directly copied/cloned to the second Mac, retaining all of the original device UUID data, so there aren't two VMs but one + a totally identical copy, which can't be identified as a duplicate VM unless/until they are used concurrently and the MS Activation System recognise that two devices appear to be in use with an identical activation signature. Creating a clone of the original but with new UUIDs would have been the way to maintain 'legitimate' use, which would require the second VM to be separately licensed with its own Windows activation code (and, of course, a separately registered O365 installation). AFAIK the only 'legitimate' way to use a single activated Windows VM on multiple PC's/Laptops is by installing the VM on a plug-in device, e.g. preferably an external SSD.

cereberus said:

This is not true.

Create a virtual machine and install Windows with an unactivated account and use an MS account.

Click to expand...

I can't speak for virtual machines (VMs), nor do I use them. I'm only speaking of non-virtual PCs - the normal PCs most people use every day. Here, your Microsoft Account WILL display activated devices as shown in my post above.

Perhaps someone else can better explain why VMs are different, but for normal machines your assessment was false.

Peace

Dru2 said:

I can't speak for virtual machines (VMs), nor do I use them. I'm only speaking of non-virtual PCs - the normal PCs most people use every day. Here, your Microsoft Account WILL display activated devices as shown in my post above.

Perhaps someone else can better explain why VMs are different, but for normal machines your assessment was false.

Peace

Click to expand...

Even then, you are still incorrect.

You can install Windows unactivated as the host OS with an MS account and it will show as a device in MSA.

Try installing say an N version for which you do not have a licence as dual boot (or if brave enough image backup current installation) overwriting current installation, setting up with MS account.

I can assure you I test these things, not just making assumptions.

If you do the tests, and prove me wrong, I will admit I am wrong (but it ain't gonna happen here LOL).

You guys are not arguing about activated windows. You guys are arguing about Windows that is NOT activated.

NavyLCDR said:

You guys are not arguing about activated windows. You guys are arguing about Windows that is NOT activated.

Click to expand...

The discussion is about the whether devices shown in the MS account are activated which Dru2 stated.

If a device is logged in with an MS account regardless of whether Windows is activated or not, it will show as a device.

You cannot tell from MS account whether a device is activated or not.

All you know is that that device is linked to MS account and NOT whether the digital licence is activated and connected to MS account.

The only place you can tell if an MS account is connected to a digital licence is in the windows activation menu.