Excel Showing 'Unlicensed Product'? Here’s How to Activate It
When working on MS excel especially for the first time, many have reported encountering the problem, ‘excel unlicensed product.’ This problem arises due to the inability of excel to assess the office license, which can be annoying when working on working on any kind of spreadsheet. Luckily, this issue is often easy to fix. Here is an in-depth guide to troubleshooting and resolving the ‘unlicensed product’ message in excel.
What Causes The Occurrence Of The Unlicensed Product Message In Excel?
The unlicensed product message comes up mostly for users of excel whenever the application is unable to confirm whether the user has a genuine active version of Microsoft office installed on their computer. This can be caused by several factors;
Subscription Expired: The period for which the office was subscribed to or licensed has elapsed and the Excel is not able to authenticate.
Activation Problems: The failure to successfully activate excel could also be as a result of inadequate internet connection, problems with the server or wrong configurations.
Incompatible Office Versions: You could be having an older version of office software that does not conform to the present activation standards.
Damaged Installation: Damaged installation of office and presence of other files may stop excel from seeing its license as intended.
Wrong Microsoft Account: While signing in, if the account is a personal account or organizational one without the respective Office license, this could lead to the error appearing in the first place.
How to Resolve the “Excel Unlicensed Product” Issue
1. Verify Your Office Subscription or License Status:
a. Microsoft 365 Subscription: If you are using Microsoft Office 365, confirm that the subscription is still valid.
Launch Excel and click on the File menu > Account.
Under Product Information, check whether the subscription is active. In this case, a message that reads “Unlicensed Product’ comes about which is possible that the subscription service is inactive and needs to be reactivated.
In case you are part of a work or education account, reach out to your IT department in order to check if your license is still valid.
One-time Purchase: If you bought Office as a one-time purchase such as Office Home & Student, check whether the product key has been entered and activated properly.
2. Make Sure to Use the Right Microsoft Account.
In case you are having Microsoft 365, Excel will want you to sign in with a Microsoft account which is linked to your Office license.
Open Excel then navigate to File > Account.
In User Information check whether you are signed in the Office subscription account. In case you haven’t log in, click Sign In and provide the right login information instead.
In case you are signed in with a school or work account, make sure that account is licensed to use Office by your organization.
3. Activate Office By the Use of Product Key.
It could be the case that you might be required to enter a product key manually when launching for the first time a version of Excel or an Office suite that is stand-alone (for example, Office 2021 or Office 2019).
Open Excel then click on File > Account.
Under Product Information, look for the word Activate or the phrase Change Product Key.
Type in the 25 character product activation key that was included with your Office purchase.
In case you do not know the location of your product key, please look in the confirmation email you received when purchasing Office, or check the Microsoft Store or retailer where you purchased the software.
4. Office Reinstallation.
Last but not least, if nothing works, you may be left with one option: uninstall Microsoft Office and then reinstall it to fix the possible errors in the Microsoft Office programs.
From the Start menu, click Control Panel > Programs > Add or Remove Programs.
Locate and select Microsoft Office from the list and click the Uninstall button.
After Office is uninstalled, go to Microsoft Office Infopad to download again Office by providing your login details or the product key.
5. Check the Time and Date Settings.
In some cases, the failure to activate Office can also be as a result of the wrong date and time settings in the system.
Go to the bottom right corner of the screen, do a right click on the time displayed and click on Adjust date time.
Make sure that the time zone, date and time are all accurately adjusted.
Alternatively, you can tick Set time automatically to avoid such a situation from happening again.
Conclusion,
The excel sheets are found in the programs folders under c drive. If you cannot find the excel run file over there, then there are missing program related files on your computer. It is required to do a new installation if you see the missing program files.
Consequently, if you are still not able to resolve this issue, we recommend you to chat with our experts. I am sure they will help you resolve your issue. For more information visit our website.
