changing the Office Product Key?

[Robert L. Haar]

I ran into a problem where I think I need to establish a new product key for
Office:Mac 2004, but I cannot figure out how.

I recently bought a new Mac (Dual G5 Power Mac) and used the Firewire
transfer mechanism to copy all the files and applications from my old G4.
Now, when we try to run both computers at the same time, I get a message
saying that the application cannot be started because another computer is
running with the same Product ID.

We have a student/teacher package with three Product Keys, only one of which
has been used (on the G4). I would like to set Office to use one of the
unused product keys but cannot find out how to do it. I have tried doing a
complete reinstall but it never asked for the product key.

I have search both the help fiels and Microsoft's support pages with not
success. The answer may be there but I cannot find it.

I'm hoping someone on the newsgroup can help.

 

[Michel Bintener]

Follow the instructions on this website, and you should be able to enter a
different product key:

http://www.mcgimpsey.com/macoffice/office/pid.html

Also, to uninstall Office completely, you need to use the uninstaller
provided by Microsoft (Applications/Office 2004/Additional Tools/Remove
Office); simply deleting the applications will leave the PID files
untouched.

 

[Robert L. Haar]

Follow the instructions on this website, and you should be able to enter a
different product key:

http://www.mcgimpsey.com/macoffice/office/pid.html

Also, to uninstall Office completely, you need to use the uninstaller
provided by Microsoft (Applications/Office 2004/Additional Tools/Remove
Office); simply deleting the applications will leave the PID files
untouched.

I followed the command line procedure since I am running Tiger, but that
wasn't good enough. Office still came up with the old PID.

It turned out that I had to remove both Office 2004 and the previous Office
v.X version. Then I could re-install and supply the second Product Key. I
was a bit worried about loosing my email settings and saved files. But it
seems fine.

 

[JE McGimpsey]

I followed the command line procedure since I am running Tiger, but that
wasn't good enough. Office still came up with the old PID.

It turned out that I had to remove both Office 2004 and the previous Office
v.X version. Then I could re-install and supply the second Product Key. I
was a bit worried about loosing my email settings and saved files. But it
seems fine.

Hmmm....

That shouldn't have been necessary - I have XL98, XL01, XLv.X and XL04
installed on my machine, and I can run the procedure with no problems.

 

[Robert L. Haar]

Hmmm....

That shouldn't have been necessary - I have XL98, XL01, XLv.X and XL04
installed on my machine, and I can run the procedure with no problems.

I don't know. The PID must be stored somewhere. It was like a zombie coming
back from the dead.

I used the admin account to do the command line procedure. I even ran a find
command afterwards looking for anything named "*PID*" afterwards.