Last week’s Microsoft Word problem has this user fuming

This just in: The problem described in my letter below apparently affected others and has been resolved. Microsoft released a statement saying the issue has been addressed and users “should be able to activate successfully now.” For those who still experience the issue on Macs, please try to remove the Office license files using the removal tool and then activate again.

Dear Microsoft,

I wanted to thank you for the 1.5-hour troubleshooting break you forced upon me. I suppose expecting the software I pay for to work when I need it is asking too much.

When I walked into my office yesterday, your program (Word) had unilaterally decided it was unlicensed and required activation.

When I attempted to activate it, I received the message, “An unknown error has occurred. The error code is 0x800706BA.”

I Googled the error code and found numerous articles, but they were all about fixing Windows or Windows Update errors and shed no light on the issue on my Mac.

I tried to activate Word again and got the same message but a different error code this time: 0xD00711F7. Much to my surprise, when I Googled this code I found several articles that applied including one from the Microsoft Answers database that said I should: 1. Download and run a script from Microsoft’s Knowledge Base.

2. Reset my keychain (in macOS).

3. Completely uninstall and then reinstall Office.

After wasting close to an hour trying to activate my software already, I didn’t want to download and run some undefined script from Microsoft, nor did I want to reset my keychain.

So, on a hunch, I tried reinstalling Office 365 without uninstalling it first. Much to my surprise, it worked without asking to be activated.

Just so you know, this has NEVER happened to me using Apple’s productivity apps — Pages, Numbers, and Keynote — which I prefer anyway. In fact, I can’t remember any Apple app forcing me to waste a single minute activating or troubleshooting its activation, much less the 90 minutes Word just cost me.

And so, I just wanted to thank you for wasting half of my morning. Even with a deadline looming, there’s nothing I like better than troubleshooting an issue that should never have happened in the first place.

One last thing: I would delete Word and switch to Apple’s Pages in a heartbeat if my book publisher didn’t insist I use Word. Signed,

Bob “Dr. Mac” LeVitus Unhappy Office 365 subscriber When I posted a rant along these lines on Facebook, many of my friends asked why I didn’t use Pages for composing and then export the file as a Word document and send it to my publisher.

It would work in theory. Unfortunately, revision tracking data — the feature my publisher cares about most — does not export (or import) correctly.

One more last thing: I wrote my most recent book — “Working Smarter for Mac Users” — using Apple’s Pages. Here’s why:

1. The author (that’s me) prefers Pages (over Word or any other word processor).

2. The publisher (that’s also me) prefers Pages.

Bottom line: I look forward to the day when other publishers become as enlightened and I can finally leave Word behind.