Any wat to activate office 2013 without a MS account?

Diakatarnis · 23 May 2013 at 19:48

Hi,

I've just started to deploy office 2013 to customers and it appears I cant activate unless I have a Microsoft account. Now I do have one that's associated with my msdn but this doesn't really help as its mine and not the customers.

At the moment the only thing I can think of doing is making a new ms account for each customer and then logging all their office copies on that, but its such an effort I cant believe they went from product key + activation in 2010 to product key ms account then activation, I'm sure im not the only one with this issue either.

Any suggestions? its mostly home business 2013 on win 7 currently. I have noticed talk about a kms server, but not sure whether that will bind the keys to my server or not ..

Any idea would be greatly appreciated

UnworthyBean · 24 May 2013 at 10:01

Can't offer much help, But out of interest what version are you using?

We're about to transition over to using 2013 and this would be a kick in the nuts if we have to create a Microsoft account for all of our end users.

Edit: We have Pro Plus 2013 and that requires a serial number and doesn't ask for a MS account?

HecFam · 24 May 2013 at 10:08

What i have done for my clients, is to create one central ms account for all users of the same company, Then add all the copies of office for that company under that account.

In the product section it shows you the products you have, i think if you click more options, then install from disc, it will give you a distributable download and a copy of the office key.

Its a real pain in the ass but i've got a text file which corresponds with which product key is activated on which PC.

So i still think you may need at least one MS account, but i've just created another email address like [email protected] and have multiple accounts that i remember. I do think that if you get the business package, you get the admin centre which lets you change product keys willy nilly, but it costs a fair bit more.

ZXSpectrum · 24 May 2013 at 12:13

yeah there is. Its how we do it. Go to the MS OEM Partner Center, choose Office Installation from the downloads and installation menu and there is a full Office 2013 OPK Installation kit and guide. Then all you do is install in audit mode and sysprep the OS. When the user receives his system he will have to go through the oobe and then when he choses the office 2013 installation it will automatically install the version from the pkc supplied.

Diakatarnis · 24 May 2013 at 16:01

ZXSpectrum said:
yeah there is. Its how we do it. Go to the MS OEM Partner Center, choose Office Installation from the downloads and installation menu and there is a full Office 2013 OPK Installation kit and guide. Then all you do is install in audit mode and sysprep the OS. When the user receives his system he will have to go through the oobe and then when he choses the office 2013 installation it will automatically install the version from the pkc supplied.

Does the client not need a ms account then?

Its office Home Business 2013 and im not a happy bunny office 2010 was so much better at activating