No Product Key for Microsoft Office Home and Business 2016 shipped with new computer

Unreal, no one, not even a dell employee would take the initiative to help someone?? This is not right to treat a long time customer of Dell who bought thousands of dollars of computers.

This is a paid upgraded version of Microsoft Office Home and Business 2016 software that I ordered with a new dell business machine.

kate

I just got a new Precision 5810 with Office 2016 for my company and after searching the box for an activation card, I went online and found your message.

Then I found this from Dell;

How to Find and Activate Microsoft Office 2016 or 365 on your New Dell System

"Beginning December 16, 2016, if you purchased your Microsoft Office product with your Dell system, we will no longer ship an Office product key card to activate your product. Systems sold after this date are Digital Delivery systems with the software loaded onto your system ready for activation via the following instructions."

I haven't tried it yet, and probably won't have time today, but I'll try to remember to report back here if there are any problems.

Joe,

I took the plunge as Dell did not provide info, by launching Office 2016 which prompted me to ask me for Microsoft account which my company already had one so I logged in. Then it activated the 25 digit code which was preloaded with the software.

Warning. Uninstall foreign languages Office then Install Office. That way, it will install English version Office.

Before activating, I took picture of the 25 digit Product Key for safe keeping.

There was no need to go to Dell Digital Delivery system.

Dell was very poor in communicating to businesses who bought upgraded versions of Office. No information, no nothing and I wasted several hours of my company time looking for an answer before I simply went ahead and "Install."

Microsoft and Dell dropped the ball on this one.

Kate

To be fair, I think this is more Microsoft's fault than Dell's. Personally, I think Microsoft is deliberately making the activation of one-time purchase versions of Office user-hostile in order to push people toward the Office 365 software rental paradigm.

I didn't see a 25 character key when I activated, btw. I don't think I missed it, so my guess is they didn't show it to me because I created a new MS account and this is the only key associated with it. That's only a guess, though. 

My procedure for my company's computers with Office 2016 is to create a unique MS account for each computer, because I want the license to be associated with the machine to as much extent as possible. I describe that here.

I am having the same problem with a Precision 3520 I received two days ago. I did not get a product key with my computer.

I tested reinstalling the Win10 image from support.dell.com and found out it did not match the original factory installation and that it was missing the Office Home and Business 2016 I purchased. I had not activated Office 2016, so I guess any pre-stored key was wiped out when I re-imaged the laptop. 

I've wasted an entire day on the phone, support chat, and searching forums for a solution. I tried both the Office 2016 installer and another installer that Dell support provided. I'm so frustrated I opened a Twitter account for my business just to get their attention. See

I feel your pain, this is beyond ridiculous and seems to have gotten worse.

I had to go to support site for dell and it was quite slow www.dellconnect.com then have THE SUPPORT REP download the whole software and then install. 

Activation was/is a joke, they've now had me entering my login to my email 4 times without resolution.

We specifically bought home and business to prevent having to sign in to a microsoft account.

I agree with one of the other forum posts that ms must be making this hostile to non subscription based users.

Dell, please put the   software ON the computer, I don't necessarily mind downloading Office from a link on the desktop but there's no reason I should have to call support and sit through all this stupid troubleshooting because they don't have a working procedure for how to install office.

We should get a discount on the computer if were going to have to suffer the tech support  at dell fumbling about on our computer, unable to install/activate office.

The support rep is downloading updates to office now.... perhaps to resolve the activation problems... utterly ridiculous waste of my time for something that should be and has been simple in the past..... and shocker, it's still not working.

Get a procedure Dell!!. HOW can this be so hard, Office installs are basic components of a personal computer.