OK, I have not really had to use Office on the desktop in a *very* long time. Most of my editing is just with Google Workspace these days, but thanks to the Microsoft Alumni Network, we do get a $99 subscription per year as part of being that group.
So here are the quick instructions for getting it working across the family. It is a little confusing because it’s a blend of product keys and then online stuff:
- Get your product key. You actually have to go to the benefits page on the alumni site and request one.
- Then a few days later, you will get an email notification and then on that benefit page you will get the magic key.
- Here is where it is a little confusing. You then login to your Microsoft account and you choose activate, but you don’t pay, you click the button on the side and then enter your key.
This activates a license for you and five family members. So now, it works like an online service:
- Login to Microsoft.com and then got to Family choose add family members and then type in emails. They will get invites and they need to accept
- Each person needs to create an account with an email up the site.
- Then to use you need to go to Services Office, if you have already downloaded it, you click on the activate button at the top and it does the login and activates.
- If you have downloaded yet, there is a Install page. It looks like they have a 5 signed in machine limitation, so you may have to log in and log out of your devices which is a bit of a pay.
- Oh and I forgot, you also get 60 free Skype minutes (for those of you still using that thing 🙂
