STOP Repeating Activation Prompts from Microsoft Office 2018

STOP Repeating Activation Prompts from Microsoft Office 2018

NOTE:  This process should only apply to local installs of Microsoft Office NOT E3 licensed Office 365 users.  This proces should be followed on all new laptop installs of local Microsoft Office. 

We were having the same issue with the activation window popping up after installing updates. I found the issue to be the trial product key being installed on the computer. The process of uninstalling it from the windows store doesn't actually remove this product key.

  • You can find the installed office product keys by opening command prompt and running:
    cscript "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office16\ospp.vbs" /dstatus

  • We were seeing an entry for "Office16O365HomePremR_Grace edition" with a key ending in KHGM9

  • We removed this key by running the following command:
    cscript "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office16\ospp.vbs" /unpkey:KHGM9

We are no longer getting any prompts for activation!