Product Key for MS Office 2016

[BobH]

Despite having recently purchased a license and installed the app, I now find myself in need of the product key. I have it installed on my laptop but need the key to activate it on this desktop. I cannot find the sleeve the CD came in that has the product key.

I (think) I've read that a PK can be recovered from the Registry, but I can't find a wiki that tells me how to do this. I hate to spend another $40 to buy a single system, 1-year license for software that will retrieve it.

Can anyone point me to a wiki or the free software that will recover my MS Office Product Key?

[HansV]

Did you use a Microsoft account for Office 2016?

[BobH]

Hello, Hans.

I don't understand the question. I installed MS Office 2016 on my laptop from a CD and provided a product key.

The system is a re-purposed HP mini desktop which probably came from an organization that had site licenses for MS products. I had not run an Office app on this system, apparently. When I tried to open Word I was asked for a product key.

I finally found the product key for the MSO 2016 that I purchased and tried to provide it, but it wouldn't accept it, saying that the product key was not compatible with the installed product. I then tried to install from my CD only to run into this warning:

CLICK TO RUN.png

When I first attempted to uninstall Microsoft 365, it would not uninstall. Persisting, I finally got the right combination - or held my mouth right - and I was able to uninstall both Microsoft 365 and the OneNote app.
I was then able to install from my CD but it took an inordinately long time to complete. Perhaps this was due to this system having only 8GB of RAM.

Thanks for the help.