MS Office problem

**RossM** · 11th March 2020, 07:21 PM

Originally Posted by Chris Parks

I am unaware that it is not a Bona Fide activation key and would appreciate any proof that it is. Certainly MS have not given me any indication that it is. If it was not a good key the monetary loss is not a problem but I in good faith bought it and saw no reason not to pass the information on. To say I knowingly gave bad advise is not the case and not something I would do.

Apologies - in hindsight my last post came off a little harsh. I'm not intending to be accusatory, and I'm sure you spent money with these guys in good faith.
I've seen many people loose money and their data due to these sort of shonky operators, so get a bit riled up!

However, there is no retail channel for Microsoft software where the retailer sends you a digital key by email or download. Any legitimate sale involving digital downloads means the key will ALWAYS be sent directly from Microsoft. If that did NOT happen, then there is the proof of it not being bona fide.
(see Microsoft | Buy Genuine - How To Tell)

Some of these sites are also run by organised crime - they use stolen credit card details are used to buy, and then resell, what appear to be legitimate product. What you will find is they don't have any official partner status with the software houses. Quite a few are also market places - they look like a single retail organisation, but have a multitude of often dodgy sellers behind the scenes (almost like an anonymous eBay).

As always, anything that looks too good to be true usually is. An 85% or so discount should set the alarm bells ringing.

As I mentioned above, you may well be fortunate and MS won't deactivate the key. There are ways of checking the key to see what channel it came from. Let me know if you're interested.

**Chris Parks** · 11th March 2020, 10:02 PM

To clarify your comments on the key source, if I buy here I don't get a key?

Microsoft Office | Officeworks

**poundy** · 11th March 2020, 10:14 PM

Originally Posted by Chris Parks

To clarify your comments on the key source, if I buy here I don't get a key?

Microsoft Office | Officeworks

you do - a printed key on a physical card.

**RossM** · 12th March 2020, 01:11 PM

BTW, if you want to check license type you can do this from a command prompt.

For Windows, type the following & hit "Enter" key:

Code:

slmgr -dlv

The "Description" will include info about the license type -

Retail channel
OEM_DM channel
Volume_MAK
Volume_KMS

The last two would indicate pirated keys. OEM is most likely as this is what the manufacturer installs on the device. Retail is a license bought from a shop.

For Office, type either of the following (including the quotes) & hit "Enter" key::

Code:

cscript "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office16\OSPP.VBS" /dstatus

Code:

cscript "C:\Program Files(x86)\Microsoft Office\Office16\OSPP.VBS" /dstatus

Use the x86 version if you run the 32 bit version of Office.

This will provide a lot of info about the Office licenses on the machine. The item of interest is the "LICENSE NAME"

If it contains:the following its likely a pirated key:

"OEM"
"PIN"
"E5R_"
"EDU"
"MSDN"
"MAK"

If it contains the following its probably a retail key & unlikely to expire; but if it was cheap it may still be from an illegitimate source:

"Retail"

If it contains the following it is a subscription & will require ongoing payments to MS to keep active:
"O365" (this is Office 365 subscription)
"_Sub" (this is a time based retail subscription)

For example:
LICENSE NAME: Office 16, Office16ProjectProR_Retail edition - this indicates a retail version of MS Project from the Office 2016 family

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