Bought MS Office for Students aware it was locked to one laptop; had to exchange the laptop

SusanSmithWebb

Bought a laptop, installed MS office for students, it turned out the LCD backlight was flaky. Not a problem. I took it back within five days.

Until I actually asked the guy at the returns desk at Microcenter if this would be a problem and he said no. I got home, tried to get back to work and Microsoft says the product key has been used. I just spent twenty minutes on Microsoft's website and you'd think no one has had this problem ever. Any ideas getting through to Microsoft? In theory I could head back to Microcenter tomorrow and try to exchange MS word for students but I'm a little annoyed that I asked about this specific problem when I was there.

PowerSpec_MikeW

@SusanSmithWebb

The key only gets used once, then it's tied to your Microsoft account. Basically you'll just sign in and deactivate the old PC, then you install it on the new PC. You'll always just sign into office.com to reinstall.

Instructions: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/deactivate-an-installation-of-office-767e3560-96ed-4b1c-806d-2fe01c529b1b