How to Undo a Product Key for Office
The product key for Microsoft Office is how Microsoft validates the authenticity of your installation. Many people illegally share or download versions of Microsoft Office online. Microsoft disapproves of this and only assigns one product key for every registered and activated installation of the program. That is why they don't add a simple button in Office for resetting or changing the product key. If there was a mix-up somewhere and you would like to undo the product key, it is possible. You will have to make some changes to the registry in Windows to do so.
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Instructions
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Close any Microsoft Office programs that you may have open. Press the "Alt," "Ctrl" and "Delete" keys on your keyboard. Click on "Start Task Manager." Click on the "Processes" tab. Scroll through the list of running programs to see if there are any Microsoft Office programs running in the background. If there is, click on them and then click on "End Process." Do not end any processes that has "SYSTEM" as the "User Name."
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2
Click on "Start" and type in "regedit" in the Search box. Hit the "Enter" key on your keyboard. The Windows Registry Editor opens.
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Look for the Microsoft Office subkey. It will be listed as "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \Software\Microsoft\Office\12.0\Registration." Double-click on it to open it. You will find another subkey. Right-click on the second subkey and click "Copy." Open a different file folder and click "Paste" to backup the subkey in case you will need to restore it later.
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Open up the second subkey. It will look something like this: "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office\12.0\Registration\{30120000-0011-0000-0000-0000000FF1CE}." Look for the lines that have "DigitalProductID" and "ProductID." Right-click on them and then click on "Delete." Click "Yes" when you are asked to confirm.
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Close the Windows Registry Editor. Open one of the Microsoft Office programs. You will be asked to enter in a new product key. This is how you will know that the process worked and you have successfully reset the Microsoft Office Product Key.
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