Office 2016 Mac License Installer

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Before you begin activating, if you haven't already, you'll need to redeem and install Office on your PC or Mac. In the top menu bar select Finder Applications and scroll down to the Microsoft Office apps. Open any Office app, like Microsoft Word and in the What's New box that opens, select Get Started. The desktop apps will attempt Microsoft Office Professional Plus 2016 Installer to validate your software licenses every 30 days. Annual members can use the apps for up to 99 days in offline Microsoft Office Professional Plus 2016 Installer mode. Month-to-month members can use the software for up to 30 days in offline mode. Microsoft has put out the free download of Office 2016 for Mac public preview, without any Office 365 subscription required. The new software includes support for Retina displays, iCloud syncing, and looks like the versions of Office currently available on Windows and mobile. You can begin the free download here. From the top of the page, select Services and subscriptions and on that page find the Office product you want to install and select Install. To install Office in a different language, or to install the 64-bit.

Soon Microsoft are to release an update to the Office 2016 Volume License installer on VLSC.

This update is 15.17 & is the first that has a few changes that may affect the way you deploy Office 2016.

These changes are going to be later enforced in 15.20 & onwards. Below are some details on the changes, some of the why & how via the power of the MacAdmins.org Slack & the awesome @pbowden that some of us have had a sneak peek.

Contents

  • 1 What’s Changing?
2016

When you download the .iso from VLSC you’ll notice two packages within it:

The change is the new second pkg: “Microsoft_Office_2016_VL_Serializer.pkg”

Office 2016 download mac

What’s that about?

Well, for a while now it’s been fairly common practice to deploy the Office license to Macs outside of the Office installers or updates.

This came about as on occasion an Office Update or Installer would delete the file.

However, whilst the deletion itself was a bug, the ability to use the license.plist across Macs was also a bug.

What is it & should I use it?

With Office 2016, Microsoft are moving to a device based serialisation method. Which means that deploying the plist /Library/Preferences/com.microsoft.office.licensingv2.plist will no longer work.

Office For Mac 2016 License Installer Can’t Be Opened Because It Is From An Unidentified Developer

This device based serialisation is based around the generating a license on the Mac that is to be running Office 2016.

So if you employ monolithic imaging or deploy Office 2016 via a Composer snap shot etc, the serialisation will not work. (Please don’t deploy Office 2016 via a Composer snap shot, use the pkg).

Also, if you install Office 2016 whilst booted to another volume (as in when installing via a NetBoot or NetInstall volume or something like Target Mode Imaging), again the serialisation will not work.

To install Office 2016 from another volume & have the serialisation work, cache it locally on the Mac being imaged & install on first boot or if using Casper Imaging check “Install on boot drive after Imaging” for the PKG from within Casper Admin.

However, to enable Office 2016 to be correctly licensed in the multitude of deployment scenarios that we mac admins employ, @pbowden & his team have created the “Microsoft_Office_2016_VL_Serializer.pkg”

Running this will correctly serialise the Office 2016 suite, & should be run from the Mac that’s running the suite. So again, can be added post imaging & then the suite will be correctly serialised.

To be clear, this will only affect you if using the Volume Licensed version of Office 2016 & not the Office365 version.

What happens if I carry on copying the licensing.plist?

For now, not much.

Office 2016 Mac License Installer Software

15.17 is the first release with the “Microsoft_Office_2016_VL_Serializer.pkg”, from 15.20 (scheduled for Q1 2016) you will have to use the correct license.

How did people find this out?

Well a little over a month ago a gentleman with the nick @pbowden hopped into the #microsoft-office channel on the MacAdmins.org Slack, this was awesome as @pbowden is a: Software engineer for Office for Mac/iOS at Microsoft, a fellow Brit & nice guy.

Office 2016 Download Mac

It’s been a great few weeks with the community sharing feedback with @pbowden & some of us being able to test pre-release installers for Office.

Microsoft Office For Mac 2016

I hope this warning has been as helpful to you, as it was when @pbowden shared it with us.