Hi everyone. Was hoping I could get some advice. I purchased the Office Professional 2010 software back in November 2011. I installed it on both pcs as per license allowed. It's been working fine for 2 years. However, my desktop got a virus and I had to reinstall Office. It asked me for the product key up front, then installed successfully. When I open Excel/Word/Access/etc. - I get a window saying the product needs to be activated. I try to activate it and I get an error saying "this product cannot be activated because the product key is invalid". I called Microsoft support and they are telling my product key is invalid and there's NOTHING they can do. I'm furious! I purchased this from MicroCenter in 2011 - brand new. I brought it home and installed it - how could the product key be invalid if I was able to install it then and I've been using the software for 2 years? Has anyone else come across this issue? I'm not sure what to do next and I'm pulling my hair out. I can't take it back to MicroCenter because it's been 2 years and I only keep receipts going back one year. UGH!

Any advice would be soooo appreciated.

THANK YOU

If the product key you're using is the one on a label attached to your PC, that's probably not the Office key; it's more likely to be the Windows key. Since you have the product installed on your other PC, simply retrieve the key from that, using a product like the Magical Jelly Bean Keyfinder: http://www.magicaljellybean.com/keyfinder/

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

No. It's the activation key from the Office 2010 Professional box. I had the software successfully installed on 2 pcs, running for the past 2 years. I got a virus on my pc and was forced to "re-install" the software - but it now says that the key is invalid. I've been on the phone with Microsoft support - and they said there's nothing they could do. They even "suggested" that someone may have hijacked my pc at some point and stole my license key #. That's ridiculous!

After the virus, did you reinstall everything, including Windows, from scratch? If you did and you used a recovery disk that included a trial version of Office, you might need to uninstall that before installing the retail version.

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