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Office 2016 Professional Plus

Download, installation and activation – explained step by step.

Before you start

  • No other Microsoft Office may be installed on the computer. Remove any older version completely first.
  • You need an internet connection for the download and the activation.
  • Microsoft Teams is not part of the package and is installed separately.
  • Have the licence key from our email at hand.

132-bit or 64-bit?

Almost every computer built in recent years is 64-bit. When in doubt take the 64-bit version – only very old machines need 32-bit.

How to check: press the Windows key and Pause. “System type” tells you whether your Windows is 64-bit or 32-bit.

2 Download

Pick your language. You get an ISO file that Windows opens with a double click.

The interface language comes with the downloaded file. You can add a language pack later, but downloading in the language you want is simpler.

Is your language missing?

Then install Office in one of the languages above and add Microsoft’s language pack afterwards. You can switch the display language freely from then on.

Language pack at Microsoft

3 Installation

  1. Double-click the ISO file. Windows mounts it as a drive.
  2. In that drive, start setup.exe and confirm the Windows prompt.
    Windows asks whether the setup may make changes. Confirm with “Yes”.
    Windows asks whether the setup may make changes. Confirm with “Yes”.
  3. After the installation you can eject the drive again with a right click.
    This message means Office is installed. Close the window and restart once.
    This message means Office is installed. Close the window and restart once.

4 Activation

  1. Open Word or Excel and create a blank document.
  2. Go to “File”, then “Account”, then “Change Product Key”.
  3. Enter the licence key from our email and confirm. Then close every Office program and open one again.
    This is where the licence key from our email goes.
    This is where the licence key from our email goes.
  4. Under “File” and “Account” it must now say “Product Activated”.
    Under “File” and “Account” it has to say “Product Activated”.
    Under “File” and “Account” it has to say “Product Activated”.

If activation over the internet fails, choose phone activation in the same window. The wizard walks you through it.

Phone activation

If activation over the internet does not go through, the phone route is still there. It works the same for Office, Windows and Windows Server: your computer shows a long installation ID, you read it out and get a confirmation ID back.

  1. Open an Office program. If activation does not appear by itself, go to “File”, “Account”, “Change Product Key” and choose phone activation there.
  2. Pick your country. The wizard now shows the installation ID – several blocks of digits.
    The phone activation wizard showing the installation ID.
    The phone activation wizard showing the installation ID.
  3. Call the number shown, or open Microsoft’s support portal below, and read out the installation ID.
  4. Type the confirmation ID into the wizard’s fields and click “Activate”.

Open Microsoft’s support portal

Keep the computer on and the wizard open during the call – the installation ID changes as soon as you close the window. If you get stuck, we are happy to do it for you.

Installing Microsoft Teams

Teams has not been part of the Office package for a few years now. You can get it from Microsoft free of charge and install it separately.

Download Teams from Microsoft

Appendix: removing an old licence key

When you need this step: if Office has run on this computer before – an older Office 2024 installation counts – and you are only swapping the key. Otherwise the old key stays in the system, and activation either fails or drops out again after a few days.

This message often appears when an old key is still in the system.
This message often appears when an old key is still in the system.

If Office keeps reporting an error despite the new licence key, an old key is often still in the system. Here is how to get rid of it – open the command prompt as an administrator.

  1. Change into the Office folder: cd "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office16"
  2. List the keys currently registered: cscript ospp.vbs /dstatus
  3. Remove the old key; XXXXX are its last five characters from that list: cscript ospp.vbs /unpkey:XXXXX

With 32-bit Office on 64-bit Windows the folder sits under “Program Files (x86)”. Depending on the version the subfolder is called Office16 or Office15.