A lot of people still buy Microsoft Office instead of subscribing to Office365. While it's nice to have all the latest and greatest features and capabilities that come with Office products when you subscribe, the majority of people don't use more than 20% of those features.
It's a business decision. Do you want to shell out a few hundred dollars once every 3-5 years to get the new version or do you want to pay a couple of hundred dollars every year?
If you bought Office, it came with download instructions (or a DVD or USB) and an activation key that you have to use to install and activate your copy.
Hopefully you kept the key! Nowadays, your Microsoft account will retain your product key and give you access to download the software. But what if you don't have an account (or don't want to give Microsoft all that info about you), and need to reinstall office?
Here's how you can recover your Microsoft Office product key from your computer:
First, download the file on the bottom of this blog. This is a Powershell script (in a text file) that prepares to recover the key from your local installation of Office. Save the file and open it in Notepad and rename it getofficekey.ps1. Save it wherever you like, maybe in your Downloads folder. Alternatively, you can change the extension of the file from a TXT to a PS1.
Next, go to the Search box on your task bar and type in "Powershell" and press Enter.
After the Powershell window launches, you'll need to allow the command processor to run the script you just downloaded. In the Powershell window, type in
Set-ExecutionPolicy RemoteSigned
and press Enter twice.
Now you'll need to import the script and run it to get your Office key. Type in
Import-Module C:\Users\YOURNAME\Downloads\getofficekey.ps1; Get-MSOfficeProductKey
(You need to change the path in the command above, including your user name folder, to correctly point to the location where you saved the getofficekey.ps1 file if it wasn't the Downloads folder.)
And there's your Microsoft Office key! Store it in a safe place before you reinstall!
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