Solved Office Home & Student 2021: Switching Between Computers (Multiple Times)

I am switching computers and want to move my Office Home & Student 2021 to my new computer and am trying to do my homework on this process so I don't get stuck. I have not attempted to do it yet. You would think this would be a straight forward and easy process but as I do some basic research I become less confident that it is. I try to provide all the details and questions below. I also provide details on why I am slightly confused.

Core Questions

1. Is there a definitive step by step guide for this?
2. Can this be done multiple times? Yes, I am planning on switching to the new computer and only once. However, there may be a need for me to switch back my original PC or even switch back and forth for a while for a variety of reasons including the new computer not to my liking.

Background

• To be clear, I have a working Office Home & Student 2021 on my current PC. There were no issues or problems with that purchase/install.
• Recently (Black Friday) I purchased that on Amazon (Microsoft). Its a one time purchase (life time I guess) not a subscription and is titled (Microsoft Office Home & Student 2021 | Classic Apps: Word, Excel, PowerPoint | One-Time purchase for 1 PC/MAC | Instant Download). Here is the link.
• I did not document all the steps of that installation. It went fine but it just seemed al lot of steps including getting a Microsoft Account.

Points Of Confusion

• When I watch a video like this, it claims you may be only to do the transfer once. Huh? Yes, you can only have it installed one one computer at a time, but why cannot you not transfer as many times as you feel like it?
• I have no idea how activation actually works per se. Meaning, on Amazon the "Your account > Your Games and Software Library" shows your purchase and a product key. During the purchasing process Microsoft also sends you an email with the same product key. However, when you are all finished with the install on login to your Microsoft account it just shows you have purchased Office Home & Student 2021 but no product key is shown.
• The information on my Microsoft account seems confusing and poorly laid out. My current device (the PC on which Office is install on) is there under devices. My purchased Office is listed under "Services & subscriptions", but the two do not show as linked.

I guess I am just looking for clarity from someone who has done this cause I don't want to end up with a scenario that the Office is not working on either computer as I try to switch.

Hello and welcome to the forum. You have to uninstall Office from the old computer first.

thejat said:

why cannot you not transfer as many times as you feel like it?

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Assuming you bought the software on its own, i.e. it was not preinstalled on that first computer, section 3b of your licence terms includes the limitation that you can transfer the software to another device no more often than once every ninety days [unless you have suffered a hardware failure].
It is not 'how many times' but how frequently that MS limit.
If the software was preinstalled on that first computer, section 3a of your licence terms applies.

Microsoft License Terms - download page with selectors





All the best,
Denis

@glasskuter and @Try3, thanks for the quick response. This makes much more sense. I will attempt in the coming days and update this thread.

So I have not actually attempted this yet but thought I would give a quick update for those who might stumble across this thread.

glasskuter said:

If this does not work for you, contact Office Support. They are very easy to get to, extremely knowledgeable and may well take control of your machine and do it for you. Contact Us - Microsoft Support

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Right after I did my original post (before anyone responded), I opened a service request to Microsoft as well. Not to fix any activation problem, but simply to ask the same question on how this is supposed to work. Actually I assumed that I would not be allowed to log a ticket but then somehow remembered that I am supposed to get 60 days of support.


I logged service request but have had no response in 24 hours. I have never logged a ticket with Microsoft I am not sure what to expect.

Try3 said:

Assuming you bought the software on its own, i.e. it was not preinstalled on that first computer, section 3b of your licence terms includes the limitation that you can transfer the software to another device no more often than once every ninety days [unless you have suffered a hardware failure].
It is not 'how many times' but how frequently that MS limit.
If the software was preinstalled on that first computer, section 3a of your licence terms applies.

Microsoft License Terms - download page with selectors

Click to expand...

I was not aware of the above link, so thank you. However, for me it forces me to a Canadian'ish URL (Microsoft License Terms). Shockingly (or maybe not) it does not provide useful license terms. It has a very limited set of products which it can show license terms. The drop down is the complete list (see below).



However, from Excel, "File->Account->About Excel" does show the agreement. As you said, section 3 states the following

3. Transfer to a Third Party. The provisions of this section do not apply if you acquired the software in the European Economic Area (EEA) and only transfer it to another person or entity within the EEA, in which case any transfer of the software and the right to use it must comply with applicable law.

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a. Software preinstalled on device. If you acquired the software preinstalled on a device, you may transfer the software directly to another user, only with the licensed device. The transfer must include the software and, if provided with the device, an authentic Office label including the product key. Before any permitted transfer, the other party must agree that this agreement applies to the transfer and use of the software.

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b. Stand-alone software acquired from a retailer. If you acquired the software from a retailer as stand-alone software, you may transfer the software to another device that belongs to you, but no more than once every 90 days (except due to hardware failure, in which case you may transfer sooner). If you transfer the software to another device, that other device becomes the “licensed device.” You may also transfer the software to a device owned by someone else if (i) you are the first licensed user of the software and (ii) the new user agrees to the terms of this agreement. Every time you transfer the software to a new device, you must remove the software from the prior device. You may not transfer the software to share licenses between devices.

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Just waiting to see if support actually ever gets back to me as a test. In fact, I may even go to Office 365 on the new machine.

I've always used chat.

I am operational. Thanks for the assistance. Just a couple updates to share.

Activation
I followed the instructions @glasskuter outlined. As one might expect you don't get any prompts for activation until you start Excel (in may case) for the first time. At which point you login with your Microsoft account to activate. However, when you do I got the following "error" message.



I will be honest, I find confusing/surprising that Microsoft thinks that this is the "state" of activation since the first step was to uninstall from the original PC. You would think the act of uninstalling would update either your account or some license/activation server in the background to reflect the uninstall. Perhaps there are deployment scenarios that this causes problems for. My assumption is regardless of what you do to the original PC, it is considered installed until you actually do a transfer. It matters not I guess, it is what it is.

License Transfer

I clicked on "Contact support to transfer your license to this device". Much to my surprise I instantly got a virtual agent (not a phone number to call or a live agent) which new exactly what I was trying to do and successfully transferred the license in about 5 seconds.