Windows 10 Rollback, Office Key Missing

A client emailed this morning to say their PC had automatically upgraded to Windows 10.

They had decided to roll it back because ‘some applications did not work properly’. Which was music to my eyes because I did not want to have to sit through a roll back.

However, when they had gone into Outlook, it was showing as Unlicensed, and prompting them to buy!

I used my favourite Office licensing tool, OSPP.vbs to check the status and found ‘No Product Keys Detected’.

OSPP is not just a volume license tool and works with OEM/Retail versions.

Of course I asked for their Office license key, and was told ‘you have that’. Indeed I did, but its always nice to have a little joke, I mean who expects clients to retain useful information like a license key?

I then tried to manually install the key we had recorded, and was told this was not a valid key.

I noticed Excel was also open, and this was prompting to enter a key, so I pasted the same key here. No dice.

I decided a repair of Office was in order, opting for a ‘Quick Repair’. After that I opened Excel, and was greeted with the familiar ‘Office activation wizard, which went through and activated successfully over the internet.