[Strange] Office 365 Not Activating

[MCDIT]

Hello everyone,

I have a particularly strange case and I'm at my witts end with it. I would very much appreciate any help you could give!

I have a customer who handed me his computer to help with an office 365 issue. What happens is that Office isn't able to activate. When it tries, it simply says "...can't contact the server".


What I have tried to so far:

Ran as Administrator
Made sure compatibility mode wasn't checked
Repaired Office (both short and long repair)
Checked Region Settings were properly set
Disabled McAfee incl firewall etc
Reset Windows Firewall (to try)
Reset DNS, Hosts, IP, Winsock & Proxy
Uninstalled Office, Reinstalled 64 bit version from Microsoft site (previously 32)
Upgraded Windows (10) to Anniversary Edition
Ran SFC & other things. Register DLL's etc
Made a new user profile***

***The ONE thing that seemed to make progress. After making a new profile, the story was the same. Though, I was able to logout and sign-in through office and everything seemed to work as it should. Word was happy enough that it was activated, didn't pop up the activation Window and all looked well. "Account belongs to.." all well (words to that effect).

However, an hour or so later the new account is back to square one.


One thing that could possibly have an effect, is that this fella has net monitoring software installed on the computer. It will disconnect from the internet if the software isn't signed in, but will connect if it is and I suppose, must monitor websites for the children. When I made the new account, being signed out, I was able to kill the processes of this software with UVK and connect to the net. I thought that was the magic ticket, but it doesn't work now either. It is the only point that I could imagine being the weakest link, but I am very uncertain that it is to blame.

Any help would be much appreciated. The computer is needed in a hurry, though I'm afraid at this point the only thing I could do for him is Nuke & Pave. I really wouldn't like to, but as Office is imperative for him I'm not sure what else to do!

 

[nlinecomputers]

Where are you getting the setup files from? Office 365 is custom to the end user. You log into their portal and download it. Is the account paid for and valid?

 

[nlinecomputers]

You need to uninstall his net nanny software. That is a proxy or firewall that is probably causing the issue.

 

[MCDIT]

That's right, I got it from his portal. You were right indeed. As the last resort before paving I was able to jump onto the livechat support for this software where they mentioned to me that they did have reports about problems with 365 with an older version. Their site provided the update and office worked straight away. I'm very pleased, and relieved!

If it helps anyone else, the software was CovenantEyes and the incompatible version had been installed (I'm 90% sure) in July. Since the software was killable with UVK I was sure that it could be ruled out, but now I know!

Many thanks for the reply!

 

[MCDIT]

Just by the way nline, I went on to browse your site and noticed your facebook link is dead. Design looks great though, nice and clean.

 

[Markverhyden]

Where are you getting the setup files from? Office 365 is custom to the end user. You log into their portal and download it. Is the account paid for and valid?

I just ran into this, self inflicted. New computer and migrating to O365 as well. Did not have the O365 account yet, so I just registered it to an existing email. Fast foward and it's reporting it's not activated. Called support and they said you must use the customers portal login. What a pain. Pretty soon one will not be able to do anything unless the computer is on the Internet.