In a bit of naiveté I bought a couple of Office 2016 Professional codes online thinking they were just like surplus codes from a corporation or something. After doing some research, I realized that these codes were for the "Professional Plus" edition, not Professional, and wikipedia says Pro Plus is only available through VL channels. When I put in the key at setup.office.com it offered me the Setup.x86.en-US_ProPlusRetail.exe installer. I ran the installer and when I tried to sign in with the MS account I had associated the key to, it said there was no key associated with the account. So I chose instead the option to activate with a product key, typed in the same key I had associated with the MS account, and it worked. I went into Word and confirmed it was activated. But I was still concerned that maybe this was a VL edition that would need re-activation every 180 days so I found a thread here that gives instructions to tell if retail or VL is installed. I went to c:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Office\office16 and ran the "cscript OSPP.vbs /dstatus" command. Here was the result (I removed some of the numbers in case they are unique to my install): Code: C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Office\Office16>cscript OSPP.vbs /dstatus Microsoft (R) Windows Script Host Version 5.8 Copyright (C) Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. ---Processing-------------------------- --------------------------------------- PRODUCT ID: (removed) SKU ID: (removed) LICENSE NAME: Office 16, Office16ProPlusMSDNR_Retail edition LICENSE DESCRIPTION: Office 16, RETAIL channel LICENSE STATUS: ---LICENSED--- Last 5 characters of installed product key: (removed) --------------------------------------- --------------------------------------- ---Exiting----------------------------- So I think this means what I was sold was a retail type key for Office 2016 Pro Plus from an MSDN subscription. Maybe it was a fraudulently-obtained subscription, I don't know. Either way, I'm quite sure it's illegal to sell those keys online. So, here are my questions for you experts! 1. Setting the legality aside, am I at much risk that the keys I bought will stop working? If so, does "Retail" Office, once activated stay activated even if the key is invalidated? I know previous MS software has always worked that way but just want to make sure Office 2016 does too. 2. If the key is at risk of being invalidated at some point in the future, can I install Office 2016 now (I'm still running Windows 7) and back up the activation token so that when I clean install Windows 10 later this year (with no change in hardware) I can restore that token and maintain activation? 3. Last question, I was able to find the en_office_professional_plus_2016_x86_x64_dvd_6962141.iso on the net (and verified it has the correct hash). Will that iso work to install the "Retail" version of 2016 Pro Plus with these MSDN keys I have? Or must I use the C2R exe? Sorry for the long post, much appreciate any guidance here.
You don't need to care about the Volume Key. It is only one for us all, without any trouble. You then must activate the office every 180 days. A retail key if your are true owner, you can just call the MS support to correct any problem you may have. A true retail key only activates once, per machine. cheers
The whole post says: ILLEGAL KEYS You could have used a kms solution just as easily as buying unknown keys from the nets. Corporations don't sell "surplus" keys, they all most likely will be stolen keys.