We replaced my computer in the office with a newer (though used) computer. When my boss's son set it up for me he installed Office 2010 on it. In the process of finishing transferring everything over to the new computer, something went wrong and it wound up with the continual black screen on start-up. I wound up having to start from scratch and reinstall windows 7. When I went to reinstall Office 2010 again, it was then I got the message that the activation code had been used the maximum number of times. I found this forum and called that number. I proceeded to use the "phone call" option for activation and shortly into the automated phone call, it gave me the option of having the link sent to my cell via text to complete the process. I got the text, thus was able to end the phone call and completed the process via the smartphone option, which was simple and straightforward!

I did have to enter the number of times this license had been activated and I honestly didn't know what the answer was since I was not the one who purchased or installed it on anything until this point. I knew that it had at least been activated on this same computer, the first time the guy had set it up for me, so I just entered a "1" for the answer.