Microsoft Office includes popular tools like Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, Access, etc. Depending on how to get or purchase Office, the Office activation process may be different. This post teaches you how to activate Microsoft Office 365/2021/2019/2016/2013 by using other ways. A free Office file recovery tool is also provided to help you easily recover deleted or lost Office documents.
How to Activate Microsoft Office 365/2021/2019/2016, etc.
First step: How to Activate Microsoft Office for Free
If you bought a laptop with Windows 11/10 OS and Microsoft Office preinstalled and with an OEM license, then you may be able to activate Microsoft Office for free. The activation instructions are normally attached to the computer package or on the desktop screen after you activate your Windows 10/11 OS. You may be asked to log in to Office with a Microsoft account to activate your Office suite. If you don’t have a Microsoft account, you can follow the instructions to create a Microsoft account.
How to Activate MS Office with Product Key:
1. If you have installed Office
If you have successfully installed the Microsoft Office suite on your PC and you have purchased an Office product key, you can follow the guide below to activate your Office suite.
Open one of the Office apps like Word, Excel, etc. on your PC.
In the pop-up Welcome window, click the Sign in button to enter your Microsoft account credentials to sign in to Office.
Click File -> Account.
Click Activate Product.
Click the Use a different account option.
Click I have a product key link.
Then you can enter your product key to activate your Microsoft Office product. After the activation, you can see a “Product Activated” message along with the Office edition on the Account page.
2. If you haven’t installed Office
If you purchase Microsoft 365 or Microsoft Office coming with a product key, you can follow the instructions below to activate Office and install Office products on your Windows 11/10 computer.
How to Activate Microsoft Office with KMS Activators
For schools, companies, or other organizations, you can use a KMS software product to automatically activate Office products without entering a license key. The Key Management Service (KMS) is an activation service that allows organizations to activate systems within their own network. The KMS client can look for a local KMS server and activate the software like Windows OS or Office products for 180 days. After 180 days, you may need to reactivate Office again by using the KMS tool.
Top Microsoft Office KMS activators include KMSpico, MicroKMS, Microsoft Toolkit Activator, KMSAuto, etc.
How to Check If Your MS Office is Activated or Not
You can open any Microsoft Office program like the Word app and click File -> Account. You can see if your Microsoft Office is activated under Product Information.
Disadvantages of Not Activating Microsoft Office
You can use Microsoft Office for free and do not activate it, but it has some limitations.
You will have a product notice all the time at the top of the app. It is a yellow bar saying “Word hasn’t been activated. To keep using Word without interruption, activate before the date”. An Activate button is next to the message.
If you do not activate your Office before the date it shows in the warning, you won’t be able to use many features of the Microsoft Office apps. All editing features of Office are disabled.
If you go to File -> Account in the Microsoft Office program, you see also see a notification saying “Activation required”.
How to Recover Deleted/Lost Office Documents for Free
If you mistakenly deleted some Microsoft Office documents like Word files, Excel files, PPT files, etc. you can first search and find the target files in Windows Recycle Bin.
You can use MiniTool Power Data Recovery to easily recover deleted/lost MS Office files or any other kind of files from a Windows PC or laptop. You can also use it to restore data from USB, SD/memory card, external hard drive, SSD, etc.
Download and install this program on your Windows computer. Check how to use it to recover deleted or lost Microsoft Office documents from your PC or USB below.
Run the MiniTool Power Data Recovery application. If you intend to recover files from a USB flash drive, you should plug the USB into the USB port of your PC beforehand.
On the main UI, you can select the target drive that contains your deleted/lost documents and click Scan. If you don’t know which drive to select, you can click the Devices tab and select the whole disk or device, and click Scan.
After the scan, you can check the scan result to find if your needed files are there, if so, check them and click Save Choose a new destination to store the recovered Office files.
Tip: If you want to fast scan a specific type of Office file like a Word file, you can click the Scan Settings icon in the left panel. Here you can choose what type of files you want to scan. If you want to only scan and recover files you can choose Document and only select Office Word Documents (*.doc) file type. Click OK to save the scan settings.
Free PC Backup Software to Keep Your PC Data Safe
To keep data safe, it’s a good idea to always have a backup of important files. To help users back up Windows systems and data.
Aside from backing up files, you can also use ShadowMaker to back up and restore your Windows system. This is helpful when your computer has problems and you want to revert your computer to a previous healthy state.
Conclusion
This post offers instructions for how to activate Microsoft Office 365/2021/2019/2016/2013 and offers a free data recovery guide to help you recover deleted or lost Office documents. Hope it helps.