How do I activate my old Microsoft Office?
Q
Recently, I uninstalled Microsoft Office 2010 from my computer and moved to Microsoft 365 Family instead. In the old days, I would have been able to reinstall Office elsewhere, if desired. However, Microsoft appears to have blocked this, presumably in the hope of selling newer versions of Office. I tried installing Office 2010 on to an old laptop, but, when trying to activate, I was told that it was already installed elsewhere and the licence’s limit had been reached. Furthermore, the company has literally pulled the plug on the activation phone line. So, is this true? Is there anything I can do? Garth Williams
A
It is both true – and not. It’s certainly true that Microsoft would prefer people to buy new editions of Office. It’s also true that the company has disabled the original manual-activation phone numbers that were part of Office 2010.
One could fairly question Microsoft’s motivations behind doing that. Most charitably, we’d flag up that those phone numbers are at least 12 years old, and things sometimes do need to change.
However, the company does still allow manual activation by telephone – if you know the correct new number. The Office 2010 support page, at www.snipca. com/41901 (see screenshot 1 ), explains that the program might display an error message when trying to activate by telephone. It also links to a second support page, at www.snipca.com/41902, which has a list of activation numbers for countries around the world. For the UK, that number is 0800 018 8354 2.