Unable to activate Office for Mac 2011 Pro

[UtterDisbelief]

Yes, some love it , some hate it but I had to install Microsoft Office for work.

I bought the full "Pro" version.

It installs fine and the latest update too.

When the online activation failed I rang Microsoft's automated help line and typed in the code given.

Sadly the software would still not activate, saying my Installation ID was invalid.

I've even been on the phone to a real person who I allowed rather scarily to use LogMeIn to remotely control my Hack. I watched carefully as they uninstalled and re-installed but still Office would not activate. They concluded my machine was at fault.

I checked and the About This Mac windows shows a Mac Pro 2008 with a unique serial number. I also did some online research and made sure the Thunderbird Bridge was removed from Network settings.

Has anyone else had this problem?

Does anyone know of a cure?

Or what it is about a Hackintosh that might upset Microsoft?

Thanks in advance for any help you can offer.

 

[P1LGRIM]

This Microsoft page suggests that your hard drive must be named Macintosh HD, could this be your problem ?

Good Luck

 

[UtterDisbelief]

This Microsoft page suggests that your hard drive must be named Macintosh HD, could this be your problem ?

Good Luck

Hi P1lgrim, thanks for your advice.

Actually, yes I saw this too. I had indeed named my OSX drive something else. So I reformatted, did a full new install on the correctly named drive ... No go.

 

[rwillett]

I have a hackintosh and have had no issues with Office 2011. My hard disk is called Mavericks. Had a couple of different builds and called my HD all sorts of things with no issues.

Since you have a genuine copy of Office this is a bit odd. I don't recall the licensing and how it works as my version of office went straight in.

I would do a fresh install of office. The ms website has instructions on what to delete to clear it from your system, it takes a good 20 mins to remove it all by hand. Simply deleting the apps is not enough.

Try that and report back.

 

[UtterDisbelief]

I have a hackintosh and have had no issues with Office 2011. My hard disk is called Mavericks. Had a couple of different builds and called my HD all sorts of things with no issues.

Since you have a genuine copy of Office this is a bit odd. I don't recall the licensing and how it works as my version of office went straight in.

I would do a fresh install of office. The ms website has instructions on what to delete to clear it from your system, it takes a good 20 mins to remove it all by hand. Simply deleting the apps is not enough.

Try that and report back.

Hi RWillet, thanks

Good to hear the HD name didn't matter in your case. Sadly I've already done as you suggest and have a copy of the uninstall instructions (which I compared with what the Microsoft Support Agent did to my Hack remotely - pretty much the same). This included weedling-out all those hidden Private/Var files and receipts.

Still not activating. (Where's the emoticon for "Harrump!" ??)

No other software from anyone else refuses to activate if it needs to.

P.S : Yes indeed, fully legit software which I bought directly from Microsoft so couldn't get more genuine if it wanted to!

 

[P1LGRIM]

I dimly recall some issue with Service Packs and activation.

Maybe you can download and install them from Microsoft and retry the activation.

Good Luck

 

[UtterDisbelief]

I dimly recall some issue with Service Packs and activation.

Maybe you can download and install them from Microsoft and retry the activation.

Good Luck

Thanks.

Yes annoyingly MS don't seem to have slipstreamed their updates into the main Office installation file as delivered by Digital River. But 14.4.1 seems the latest SP and installs OK when applied.

Did try activating the basic install too, before updating. Nope.

 

[rwillett]

I've run out of ideas, I haven't had any issues with activations or updates. Knowing Microsoft they could do something to check that its a genuine Mac, but I'm struggling to think what I did special, that you haven't done.

You don't mention your system and how you've installed it. My system was only build last month and uses a Z87X UD3H MB and the 'standard' installation using Multibeast. I didm't do anything with serial numbers or plists or DSDT's so its as clean as it can be.

Sorry but thats my knowledge exhausted.

Rob

 

[UtterDisbelief]

I've run out of ideas, I haven't had any issues with activations or updates. Knowing Microsoft they could do something to check that its a genuine Mac, but I'm struggling to think what I did special, that you haven't done.

You don't mention your system and how you've installed it. My system was only build last month and uses a Z87X UD3H MB and the 'standard' installation using Multibeast. I didm't do anything with serial numbers or plists or DSDT's so its as clean as it can be.

Sorry but thats my knowledge exhausted.

Rob

Well thanks for bending your mind to the problem. It's appreciated.

I seem to be alone with this one.

The install was a simple Multibeast job. Nothing flash. I'd read somewhere that the lack of a serial-number caused problems but my install was fine.

Odd that Microsoft implement some kind of deep check no-one else, not even Apple, does.

I'll keep my license in case I swap for a real Mac again.

Live and learn.

 

[UtterDisbelief]

Well I'm happy to be able to report I have now managed to activate the product I paid so much for !

I regret not actually being able to record the exact point at which everything came together but for anyone else who might have suffered the same problem as me I did the following - in total:

No amount of re-installs on a newly reformatted drive did any good. That has to be stated.

I went into the UEFI BIOS and removed the Serial and Parallel ports. After all OS X and Mac in general left these behind years ago. I've never had to do this before but just figured I'd try anything reasonable.

I made sure I'd disabled VT-d although I'm pretty certain I couldn't previously boot if it was enabled.

I changed the Windows 8 option in the BIOS to "Other OS".

I then updated to OS X 10.9.3 using the Combo update downloaded from Apple as per Tonymacx86's coverage.

I re-installed my Audio and Wi-Fi drivers and rebooted.

I installed the updated Safari and RAW drivers from the App Store.

I re-installed Microsoft Office for Mac 2011 Home and Business edition.

It activated !!!



Once the smile was there I updated using the latest Microsoft update.

All is now good to go.