This is starting to sound once more like a pirated version - or maybe an illegal attempt to sell copies of a multi-user version of Office that's only licenced for installations in a single corporation. It would be quite unusual for MS to refuse activation of a genuine product, either on-line or by telephone, unless all the installations permitted under the license had already been used.

What particular error messages did you get when trying the on-line & telephone activations?

__________________
Cheers,
Paul Edstein
[Fmr MS MVP - Word]