[German]After the March 2024 updates, a user contacted me because he was prompted to update his license in Microsoft Office 365. The topic has been left lying around for a while, but I'm including it here in the blog – perhaps there are other readers who are affected.
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Blog reader Michael contacted me by email back in mid-March 2024 because Office 365 users in his company environment had been given a "new feature" from Microsoft. He wrote to me about this:
Hi Günter,
Just in case others seeing this in amazement, because the new "Update license" option has appeared since the last Office 365 update.
In the reader's company environment, a new Update license (German Lizenz aktualisieren) option appeared in all Office 365 applications in the monthly Enterprise Channel from Office 365 version 16.0.17231.20290. The reader, who works as an administrator, was initially puzzled and of course immediately suspected a license problem because he received the following message:
The reader then did some research and then came across the German forum post Nach Office Updates neue Option "Lizenz aktualisieren" from March 14, 2024 in Microsoft Answers. Searching the internet, I found in English Microsoft Answers forum the entries Office365 Abruptly Updated and New "Update License" Option Appears- Unsure What to Do. The thread starter wrote there:
when I logged on today, Office abruptly decided to automatically update itself which never happens; now when I open Word, there's a subtle new option called "Update License".
I can still open, edit, save, and create documents to my heart's content but this new option just exists now. I also manually updated Office on my laptop once I saw this "Update License" didn't exist there, and after it updated, this option appeared.
I found also this entry with a similar observation. Within the German forum post Nach Office Updates neue Option "Lizenz aktualisieren" a so-called Microsoft agent / moderator, who is active in the forum on behalf of Microsoft, wrote:
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This is not an issue but a new functionality. If you get a new license assigned to your user, you don't need to sign out, reinstall Office and sign in again. With this option, Office will simply synchronize with the new license.
In February and March 2024, Microsoft has updated its Office 365 channels with a new functionality that displays the entry outlined above.
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