Uninstall Office 365 and install Office 2016

[German]On Windows systems where Microsoft Office 365 was installed as a trial version, there are often problems to cleanly uninstall this trial version and then install Microsoft Office 2016 (as an MSI version). Here are some hints what you can do.

The problem: Office 365 cannot be completely uninstalled

On some Windows systems, a trial version of Microsoft Office 365 is pre-installed. It appears that you are having trouble uninstalling this preinstalled version of Office 365. I had already addressed this issue in April 2018 in the blog post Office 365 can't be uninstalled completely. Within this article I reported a case, where an affected user was forced to reinstall an OEM system without Office 365 trials to solve this issue. Within the blog post I outlined other approaches to remove an Office 365 install.

Uninstall Office 365 and install Office 2016

After reading my old (German) blog post about how to uninstall Office 365, German blog reader CW contacted us some time ago and sent me a mail describing his solution for uninstalling Office 365 and then installing Office 2016 – thanks for that. The reader writes:

since I could take appropriate suggestions from your blog,
here the solution for the following problem: Office 365 can't be uninstalled completely 

Blog reader Cw had the following situation: A Microsoft Surfac, on which an Office16O365HomePremR_Grace Edition was preinstalled as test/trial version. But he hat the plan, to install and activate an Office16ProPlusVL_MAK-Edition 64 Bit on his surface using the 64 Bit version of Office 2016 PP via an ISO image

Note: Below I used the paths for a German Windows – so you need to adjust the command paths given below for your Windows. The German folder 'Programme' is 'programs' in an English Windows for instance.

CW writes that you must perform the following steps in an administrative command prompt (cmd, started as administrator).

1. Install the Office key with the following command:

C:\WINDOWS\system32>cscript "C:\Programme\Microsoft
Office\Office16\OSPP.VBS" /inpkey:<insert here the key for Office 2016 pp>

2. When you try to activate Office 2016 by using the following command:

C:\WINDOWS\system32>cscript "C:\Programme\Microsoft
Office\Office16\OSPP.VBS" /act

the following error occurs:

Installed product key detected – attempting to activate the following
product:

SKU ID: c47456e3-265d-47b6-8ca0-c30abbd0ca36
LICENSE NAME: Office 16, Office16ProPlusVL_MAK edition
LICENSE DESCRIPTION: Office 16, RETAIL(MAK) channel
Last 5 characters of installed product key: <letzter Teil von MS Office
2016 PP-Key>
<Product activation successful>

—————————————
Installed product key detected – attempting to activate the following
product:
SKU ID: d7279dd0-e175-49fe-a623-8fc2fc00afc4
LICENSE NAME: Office 16, Office16O365HomePremR_Grace edition
LICENSE DESCRIPTION: Office 16, RETAIL(Grace) channel
Last 5 characters of installed product key: KHGM9
ERROR CODE: 0xC004F017
ERROR DESCRIPTION: The Software Licensing Service reported that the
license is not installed.
—————————————

i.e. an attempt is made to activate an Office16O365HomePrem in addition to the Office16ProPlus. But this fails.

The solution:

Uninstall the Office16O365HomePrem key with the following command

C:\WINDOWS\system32>cscript "C:\Programme\Microsoft
Office\Office16\OSPP.VBS" /unpkey:KHGM9

…

This results in the following output:

—Processing————————–
Uninstalling product key for: Office 16, Office16O365HomePremR_Grace edition
<Product key uninstall successful>

Then reinstall the actual key (MS Office 2016 PP) with the following command:

C:\WINDOWS\system32>cscript "C:\Programme\Microsoft
Office\Office16\OSPP.VBS" /inpkey:<hier key für Office 2016 pp eintragen>

Afterwards, the actual key (MS Office 2016 PP) must be reactivated with the following command:

C:\WINDOWS\system32>cscript "C:\Programme\Microsoft
Office\Office16\OSPP.VBS" /act

…

This results in the following output:

—Processing————————–
Installed product key detected – attempting to activate the following
product:
SKU ID: c47456e3-265d-47b6-8ca0-c30abbd0ca36
LICENSE NAME: Office 16, Office16ProPlusVL_MAK edition
LICENSE DESCRIPTION: Office 16, RETAIL(MAK) channel
Last 5 characters of installed product key: <letzter Teil von MS Office
2016 PP-Key>
<Product activation successful>
————————————–

The activation can then be checked with the following command:

C:\WINDOWS\system32>cscript "C:\Programme\Microsoft
Office\Office16\OSPP.VBS" /dstatus

This results in the following output at the command prompt window:

Microsoft (R) Windows Script Host, Version 5.812
Copyright (C) Microsoft Corporation. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

—Processing————————–
PRODUCT ID: 00339-23803-18017-AA850
SKU ID: c47456e3-265d-47b6-8ca0-c30abbd0ca36
LICENSE NAME: Office 16, Office16ProPlusVL_MAK edition
LICENSE DESCRIPTION: Office 16, RETAIL(MAK) channel
BETA EXPIRATION: 01.01.1601
LICENSE STATUS:  —LICENSED—
Last 5 characters of installed product key: <last part of von MS Office
2016 PP-Key>

Maybe the information will help someone who is facing the same situation.

Similar articles:
Pitfall: Free Office 365 Personal or University subscription
Microsoft's obscure 'Self Service for Mobile' Office activation
Office Telephone activation is no longer supported error
Office 365 can't be uninstalled completely