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Having Activation Problems?

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Many people have reported here on the blog or through e-mail that they are having problems activating their copy of Office 2007 Beta 2.

I’m really sorry this isn’t working well, but that’s kind of to be expected with beta software sometimes. The activation servers are just slammed with people trying to activate their software—I know that the team that owns this is aware of the problem and are working hard on resolving it.

Microsoft launched the two biggest betas in its history yesterday but I don’t think anyone expected the sheer number of downloads and attempted activations of Vista and Office 2007.

Testing the activation servers is an important part of making sure that the product is ready to ship so, in a way, some good has come of this in that team has learned a lot about improving the process for RTM.

So, thanks for your patience and give it a try during off-peak times or in a few days when things have cooled off a bit.

Comments

  • Anonymous
    May 24, 2006
    I was having problems then about 30 minutes ago I received a message saing the activation server was down for matinence now it works like a champ, activated visio 2007 and office 2007 suite with no problems :), hopefully this is the same for everyone else having problems.
  • Anonymous
    May 24, 2006
    I really appreciate you (Microsoft) acknowledging these problems.  I'm a huge Apple fan, but I hate how Apple refuses to acknowledge any problems with its hardware (or at least rarely acknowledges problems).

    The MacBook Pro heat and whine.  The problems with the PowerBook screens.  And so on and so forth...

    Thanks guys; you're doing a phenomenal job.
  • Anonymous
    May 24, 2006
    Activated it a few hours ago without problems. Thanks for the post, people were a bit in the dark.
  • Anonymous
    May 24, 2006
    Thanks for letting us know, I was getting worried. :)
    I'm wondering, how many 'machines' can Beta 2 be activated on? I've got a dual boot of XP and Vista on one machine and Vista also installed on a laptop and don't want to end up activating on a test system which is going to go disappear with the next CTP that comes out.
  • Anonymous
    May 24, 2006

     Living away from home for three days prevents me from enjoying a geek life!   When I was off to university,...
  • Anonymous
    May 24, 2006
    Can you tell us how many copies of Office 2007 beta 2 were downloaded over the last couple of days, or is this hush-hush confidential?
    Just for the sake of going "whoa" over the number. :)
  • Anonymous
    May 24, 2006
    It's not the activation as much as the silly limitation about the use under Terminal Server. Remember a lot of software doesn't care whether it runs in Terminal Server. A lot of software that coincidentally includes OpenOffice.org and VMware
  • Anonymous
    May 24, 2006
    By the way, it doesn't even uninstall, it babbles about a corrupted or missing file (whatever), and I have to msizap it
  • Anonymous
    May 24, 2006
    i haven't been having trouble running it over remote desktop, termserv, or vmware...
  • Anonymous
    May 24, 2006
    Took a day, but activated successfully now.

    Really good product, I'm impressed with the work that has gone into it. Plus I get 1048576 rows in Excel! Its like an extra birthday!
  • Anonymous
    May 24, 2006
    If you've registered to download the 2007 Microsoft Office System Beta 2 and are having issues activating...
  • Anonymous
    May 24, 2006
    It's great that you guys are addressing the problem, but you do need to change the error message that is displayed when the activation servers are overloaded.  A simple "Server is busy; try again later" is much more preferable to "Internet connection not found". ;-)  

    I read that the "Internet connection not found" message caused people to double-check their wires, modems, proxy settings, etc, based on that misleading error message.
  • Anonymous
    May 25, 2006
    Where can I submit bug reports and suchlike? There doesn't seem to be a mechanism to do this (which I thought was the point of a beta).

    So far my experience has been very depressing - I was so looking forward to using this after following the blogs for the last few months. Everything you were saying seemed to make sense... until I tried it.

    Leaving aside the bugs/crashes, it would help if there was somewhere to go to ask questions about where to find stuff in the UI. For example, I have an Excel chart embedded in a Word document (inside a table). I need to change the crop settings on the chart, but it's offering me the table-related commands, not the object-related commands. So as far as I can tell, I can't change the settings. Who to ask?
  • Anonymous
    May 25, 2006
    Jensen,

    I'd really love to follow some of the tutorials that you've linked to... I'm super excited about getting to develop into the ribbon but the VSTO tools that came out this week don't want to install.  They want the Feb WinFX install and everything else wants the June WinFX.  And I want to develop into this great UI (see - I tied it back to you) so if you happen to be in the room with some of the VSTO people, could you just mention it to them. I've droped a post on Eric Carter and John Durant's blogs too.  Is there someone else I should mention this to?
  • Anonymous
    May 25, 2006
    Hey, I finally got activated, but now all the beta newsgroups are not letting me in anymore!

    I still can't get Outlook to send email in my font vs. Times New Roman.  It aggressively removes font formatting.  I was hoping that someone would have a workaround for this... this cropped up in B1TR.

    TTFN
  • Anonymous
    May 25, 2006
    Think of the overwhelming popularity of E3 and the sheer amount of downloading going on then on XBox Live. Why would it not dawn on the team that this could happen with two of the most anticipated betas at Microsoft in quite some time.....

    Anyways....... I hope to see more, these products are only getting better. Using Office 2007 everyday.
  • Anonymous
    May 25, 2006
    Testers, please use the volume licence key provided on the beta site. Thank you.
  • Anonymous
    May 25, 2006
    I had some difficulties, as did many.  But the multiple posts by you and the other MS bloggers put me at ease, and helped me be patient.  :)

    Thanks for keeping us informed,and for creating a great product.  I'm really looking forward to using it!
  • Anonymous
    May 25, 2006
    Gary, for info on how to report feedback on Office 2007, see http://blogs.msdn.com/joe_friend/archive/2006/05/25/606779.aspx
  • Anonymous
    May 25, 2006
    I found there is lots of issues within the beta 2.

    However, its a loverly brand new office. >_<

  • Anonymous
    May 28, 2006
    I did this humungous Office 2007 download (440 MB!) and activated it successfully on my desktop too! Amazing interface. As those guys at McDonalds would say, "I'm lovin' it!"

    Just wondering - can I use the same key to activate it on my laptop also? Or do I need to get another key for the laptop?

    Thanks in advance!

    Ram
  • Anonymous
    June 03, 2006
    Activation when connected direct to the internet seems fine, but cannot get Office 2007 Beta2 to prompt for Proxy (Squid) logon details during activation when in an office environment behind a proxy/firewall.
    Just returns an error stating that I am not currently connected to the internet.
    Any ideas?
  • Anonymous
    June 04, 2006
    PingBack from http://pauked.com/blog/?p=210
  • Anonymous
    June 08, 2006
    I'm also having problems activating behind a firewall (the activation program doesn't seem to detect proxy settings).
  • Anonymous
    June 10, 2006
    I purchased XP Professional approx 2years ago.
    I activated the software.  Never reinstalled until recently when I purchased a new computer. I installed on the new computer but didn't want to remove from the old computer until I had everthing switched over.  I use it for internet. Now on both computers I get the activation message.  The new install is locked. Why is this? I've had difficulties getting my internet service to work properly. Could someone have copied my XP software?
  • Anonymous
    June 29, 2006
    Asaspal. Memrano tu es besta. Amigo.
  • Anonymous
    September 25, 2008
    PingBack from http://www.laodoo.com/office-2007-beta-2-activation-problems-surfaced-activated-from-overburdened-server/