1

Simply signing into Office as another User does not change the ‘Belongs to’ entry in Office 2016. If the person it belongs to doesn’t match the signed in person Office 2016 will start showing a licensing error.

It would be nice if there was a change owner button, or something similar, but there isn’t. Luckily, it’s not too hard to fix.

Step 1: Open a command prompt

cmd.png

Use your favorite method to get a command prompt open. Winkey+R then CMD, Start then Command Prompt, etc.

NOTE - you need to run this as administrator

Step 2: Run the ospp.vbs command

key.png

Run the following command to get the last 5 digits of the product key:

cscript.exe “%ProgramFiles(x86)%\Microsoft Office\Office16\ospp.vbs” /dstatus

Step 3: Run ospp.vbs again, different options

key2.png

Run the same command again, but change the options. This time you will be unpublishing the key you found in step 2. Replace XXXXX with the key from step 2.

cscript.exe “%ProgramFiles(x86)%\Microsoft Office\Office16\ospp.vbs” /unpkey:XXXXX

Step 4: Exit command prompt, run an Office app

Once you’ve exited the command prompt open any Office program (Word, Excel, etc.) and you will be prompted to sign in. Whatever account you sign in with will become the ‘Belongs to’ account.

It only takes a few seconds to do this, but I don’t know why MS made it so you have to leave the apps and go CLI for it.

14 Spice ups
2

I have this issue a lot and you might also need to check a few other places for like the Credential Manager

Also you might need to clear this registry entries:
HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Office\15.0 or 16.0\Common\Identity\Identities
HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Protected Storage System Provider
HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Office\15.0 or 16.0\Common\Identity
HKEYU(The Users SID)\Software\Microsoft\Office\15.0 or 16.0\Common\Identity

3

I’ve never had to do any of that, but thanks for the info.

4

yeah you can do this, good for non-shared activation of Office 365 2016. its worth looking into the Office Deployment Toolkit from MS, you can setup Shared-User activation for systems that have multi users.

5

Running the commands alone did not affect the “Belongs to:” entry for me, though I am running Office 365, not 2016. But the comment from Josh about clearing the registry entries DID work. Thanks guys!

6

is there a fix for Mac for this? or will this work just as well in Terminal?

7

Sorry, I have no Apple devices so have no idea.