[ms office - o365] Office 365 Device-Based Activation confirmed as no longer activating

[DJ-1701]

Well, unfortunately I have just confirmed that Office 365 Device-Based Activation no longer works, and has been retired.

 

Anyone lucky enough to be on EES rather than OVS can use the new method of Microsoft 365 Device Based Subscription for Education though for those of us that don't have that many staff to get EES I am wondering where to go from here...

 

Only option I can think of is Shared Computer Activation... lucky we have SSO setup... but of course if anyone is using a stand alone school device with a local account, that's where things get interesting for us all...

 

I thought I would start this thread first to notify anyone that starts getting PreflightCheck failed - wait: 463, PreflightCheck failed - wait: 459, PreflightCheck failed - wait: 390, etc errors. Second for anyone to discuss where they are going from here... or let us know there is a magical thing us OVS users can do to get DBA or DBS working. [sarcasm Self Test Complete].

[robyholmes]

I'm interested to hear how people are getting on with Shared Computer Activation. I'm hoping to deploy Office 365 this summer and as we aren't big enough to get EES it looks like Shared Computer Activation is the only option.

[MrEprise]

I did discover this while moving 2 of our display PCs over to W10 yesterday. We're about halfway through our Windows 7 to 10 migration (student PCs done but staff not yet) and we would have sorted this had it not been for recent events.

 

Does anyone know how this Shared Computer Activation works? It's either that or having to use Office 2019 instead which we'd preferred not to have to do, no thanks to Microsoft like a number of companies (yes I'm looking at you Google) like to put short shelf lives on everything they release these days.

[victory2012]

This is an absolute nightmare i was in middle of rebuilding all my stations in the school i now have half the school unusable as office didnt delpoly and everyone is using teams at the moment.. all because of Microsoft!! ive now got get my head round trying to setup the new device based activation trough azure and i havent even got any Office 365 ProPlus for Education (device) licences for some reason!!.. i must have missed the small print ! everything was working fine last week....... arghhhhh

[mitchell1981]

I've been following this for a while and there are lots of threads about it but no solution other than 'use shared computer activation'.

 

Can anyone remind me what the down sides of shared computer activation are? As I understand it, non-licenced users can't use Office on the computer. That isn't a problem for us as all our users are licenced. Also, as I understand it, these activations do not count towards the users limit.

 

Assuming you can set up SSO to make the experience seamless, are there any major problems with using Shared computer activation? I'm sure there were problems last time I researched it, but I can't remember what they were!

[victory2012]

I've been following this for a while and there are lots of threads about it but no solution other than 'use shared computer activation'.

 

Can anyone remind me what the down sides of shared computer activation are? As I understand it, non-licenced users can't use Office on the computer. That isn't a problem for us as all our users are licenced. Also, as I understand it, these activations do not count towards the users limit.

 

Assuming you can set up SSO to make the experience seamless, are there any major problems with using Shared computer activation? I'm sure there were problems last time I researched it, but I can't remember what they were!

 

the last time i used Shared computer activation it was a nightmare as the user count quickly filled up and was activating based on the users limit, now if thats changed then i should be ok, ive also found out that the new device based activation is only for EES customers !

 

just on the record this is the worst time microsoft could have made this change, im just glad we havent got a full school at the moment!!

[mitchell1981]

Just read this on the Microsoft overview page. It's not very clear!!

 

Activation limits

Normally, users can install and activate Microsoft 365 Apps only on a limited number of devices, such as 5 PCs. Using Microsoft 365 Apps with shared computer activation enabled doesn't count against that limit.

Microsoft allows a single user to activate Microsoft 365 Apps on a reasonable number of shared computers in a given time period. The user gets an error message in the unlikely event the limit is exceeded.

[victory2012]

Just read this on the Microsoft overview page. It's not very clear!!

 

activate Microsoft 365 Apps on a reasonable number of shared computers in a given time period. The user gets an error message in the unlikely event the limit is exceeded.

 

 

yep i think i remember this is where i had issues as our students move around a lot and use a lot of laptops mobile devices we were seeing this on a regular basis... maybe they have increase the limit however that is why i went ahead with device based activation in the first place..

[AJWhite1970]

Interesting thread. So my understanding is that I have a MAK key for Office 2019 which works fine but to stay ahead of the curve I should be putting Microsoft 365 Office on all my workstations (test download and distribution built) but there is now no way to pre activate that with a key other than the first user logging on and going through the shared activation wizard?

[lewisburgess]

Does anyone know if you can use the Shared Computer Activation with the "Office 365 A1 Plus for Faculty / Student" SKU? (the ones which say are 'unlimited' in the GUI, that have always been hard to get MS to apply).

[DJ-1701]

Does anyone know if you can use the Shared Computer Activation with the "Office 365 A1 Plus for Faculty / Student" SKU? (the ones which say are 'unlimited' in the GUI, that have always been hard to get MS to apply).

 

As long as your users are licensed it's fine. I just setup an installer for Microsoft 365 for Enterprise and Shared Computer Activation, since the users are all using SSO they are automatically logged in and it notes that they have a license to use the Applications.

[DJ-1701]

Interesting thread. So my understanding is that I have a MAK key for Office 2019 which works fine but to stay ahead of the curve I should be putting Microsoft 365 Office on all my workstations (test download and distribution built) but there is now no way to pre activate that with a key other than the first user logging on and going through the shared activation wizard?

 

If you have SSO setup, the accounts are automatically logged in when you load Office products, so you don't see any screen.

[lewisburgess]

As long as your users are licensed it's fine. I just setup an installer for Microsoft 365 for Enterprise and Shared Computer Activation, since the users are all using SSO they are automatically logged in and it notes that they have a license to use the Applications.

 

To clarify...

 

This is with an OVS-ES agreement, with Azure AD joined devices, users with Office 365 A1 Pro (not M365 A3 etc) and Office 365 deployed via SCCM?

 

No "Microsoft 365" SKU or EES?

[DJ-1701]

To clarify...

 

This is with an OVS-ES agreement, with Azure AD joined devices, users with Office 365 A1 Pro (not M365 A3 etc) and Office 365 deployed via SCCM?

 

No "Microsoft 365" SKU or EES?

 

Well all Office 365 plans have been renamed Microsoft 365 anyway, but if you had the Office 365 A1 Plus plan, yes shared computer activation will work fine.

[FragglePete]

It is a nightmare, but I knew this was coming for a while so tried to prepare for this - timing is a bit frustrating and I really am annoyed at Microsoft cutting out Primaries and Secondaries from this - it really only seems aimed at larger organisations. I was hoping it wouldn't affect our rebuild this Summer.

 

We deploy using MDT, so our task sequence did the whole install Office step using OPPTransition.exe method which just worked nicely. Installing using Shared Computer Licensing is just a using the appropriate entry in the configuation.xml file called when running Setup.exe. This is what I've got in ours:

 

 

I did test it back in April, and it seemed to work - Office does a quick license check whenever someone opens up something like Word but thankfully appeared to work. It does state that there is a limit that a number of users can use a license in this way, but doesn't tell you what that limit is. I don't think it'll be a problem in a secondary. I'm going to check our new image now to make sure it still works that I'm just tweaking at the moment.

 

However, I look after a primary school as well and they have a suite of computers with Office installed. Currently 2013, but I want to get them on the latest and greatest in the near future. Problem is here they use a generic login for each year group - primary kids just don't have individual usernames and passwords - I'm not convinced Shared Computer Licensing is going to work right here but I guess we'll have to see.

 

But. Why Microsoft? Why did you have to change this???

 

Pete

[DJ-1701]

However, I look after a primary school as well and they have a suite of computers with Office installed. Currently 2013, but I want to get them on the latest and greatest in the near future. Problem is here they use a generic login for each year group - primary kids just don't have individual usernames and passwords - I'm not convinced Shared Computer Licensing is going to work right here but I guess we'll have to see.

 

It's a good question... though it also depends if they really use Office that much at all at Primary level. Most of the time I see the Primaries using browses to access web content more than not. Could always create one login a class I guess.

[lewisburgess]

This is an interesting article... https://contosoedu.com/deploying-office-365-proplus-device-based-subscription-for-edu/

 

Currently following it and got to the end of part 4. I did assign the licence to the group in Azure AD Portal as it appears MS have changed this since the article was written. I assigned the dynamic group for devices to Office 365 A1 Pro Plus Faculty (unlimited) which we already had assigned to our tenant a few years ago. I recently migrated all 6 of our sites in to a single Trust-wide O365 tenant and single AD forest so this helps.

 

We're going to try a new OCT step in our SCCM build TS.

 

I've made changes to Azure AD Sync & ADFS as per https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/active-directory/devices/hybrid-azuread-join-federated-domains

 

Devices are now starting to show up as Hybrid Azure AD joined.

Edited June 3, 2020 by lewisburgess

[lewisburgess]

This is an interesting article... https://contosoedu.com/deploying-office-365-proplus-device-based-subscription-for-edu/

 

Currently following it and got to the end of part 4. I did assign the licence to the group in Azure AD Portal as it appears MS have changed this since the article was written. I assigned the dynamic group for devices to Office 365 A1 Pro Plus Faculty (unlimited) which we already had assigned to our tenant a few years ago. I recently migrated all 6 of our sites in to a single Trust-wide O365 tenant and single AD forest so this helps.

 

We're going to try a new OCT step in our SCCM build TS.

 

I've made changes to Azure AD Sync & ADFS as per https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/active-directory/devices/hybrid-azuread-join-federated-domains

 

Devices are now starting to show up as Hybrid Azure AD joined.

 

In addition to the above...

 

We have successfully deployed Office 365 via SCCM using OCT and changing the configuration.xml file to include: .

 

When a user loads an O365 app and has Office 365 A1 Pro Plus assigned to them, Office 365 apps will automatically activate for them. It does not count towards their device count (as expected with SCL).

 

When a user loads an O365 app who is not licensed, it will ask them to sign in to O365. This does mean we need to ensure all of our test, temporary, exam, assessment, cover staff, etc accounts will all need to be licensed. Technically this isn't an issue as O365 Pro A1 Pro Plus is 'unlimited' (it is limited but something like 300,000 iirc) - so may just be an issue with the terms of the MS licensing itself - I've not checked yet.

 

We were previously deploying 1906 as DBA was stable. We deployed 2005 with SCL and it works fine.

 

So it appears, if you managed to get Microsoft to add the A1 Pro Plus licenses (linked to the self sign up for O365 previously), which was quite a chore and pretty difficult, then you can technically activate O365 apps using Shared Computer Licensing.

 

The other benefit is Edge Chromium is now sync'ing nicely.

 

Next job is to migrate from ADFS to Azure AD SSO auth.

Edited June 4, 2020 by lewisburgess

[kennysarmy]

Sorry if this question is quite basic, but;

 

I have the following showing when I log in to my Microsoft 365 admin center under Billing -> Your Products!

 

O365 ProPlus for Faculty

EA - volume licensing

 

&

 

O365 ProPlus for Students

EA - volume licensing

 

But when I logon to Azure Active Directory admin center under Licences -> All products : there is no listing for O365 ProPlus for Faculty or O365 ProPlus for Students so I cannot see how to assign the licences to users?

 

My list shows:

Microsoft 365 Apps for Faculty

Microsoft 365 Apps for Students

Office 365 A1 for faculty

&

Office 365 A1 for students

 

How should I proceed if I want to roll out Office 365 to some laptops and ensure "Shared Computer Activation" is working?

 

 

Currently I have Office 2016 installed on school computers.

 

Any help or links to further reading appreciated.

 

Regards

K

[DJ-1701]

Sorry if this question is quite basic, but...

 

This is what I have in 365 admin center for purchases.

 

This should be how the licenses get assigned via 365 admin center.

 

Then you just install Office 365 with SCA and they should be able to use it.

[kennysarmy]

 

I have this

[FragglePete]

The A1 Plus is now know as Microsoft 365 Apps for Faculty / Students - this will give your users the ability to install and activate Office Applications themselves on devices at home.

 

Pete

[DJ-1701]

[ATTACH=CONFIG]58229[/ATTACH]

 

I have this

 

Might have to follow this from the Office 365 A1 Plus Licensing thread then and get in contact with the Academic Verification Engine Team.

 

Here's a quick crib sheet to help anyone else who goes down this maze:

 

 

1. Check eligibility from here - essentially, if you have O365 A1 already, and have Office ProPlus through EES or OVS, then you're eligible
   
2. Ensure your Pro Plus licensing is on your AAD tenant; your licensing provider may need to add this for you
   
3. Activate the Pro Plus licensing on AAD tenant, and ensure you can see it on your licensing page
   
4. Visit https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/education/products/office and attempt a self-service signup, for some schools this may be enough to activate A1 Plus licensing
   
5. For a lot of people though, it won't, so open a case with Office 365 support:
   
   • Do not allow them to fob you off and say it is a Volume Licensing issue; it is not and VL support cannot help you
     
   • They need to make sure you have the EDU tag on your domain, to denote you are a school
     
   • If the support agent does not know how to provision the A1 Plus licensing for you, they need to escalate it to the AVE team
     

 

[*]When the AVE team have provisioned the licensing for you, you'll need to take one student and one teacher account through self-signup, which should cause the licensing to activate, and appear on your AAD tenant.

 

Do not let support tell you this is an additional product to buy, it is not, or that you need to go through a Cloud Solutions Provider, you do not. Only Microsoft can provision this licensing. I can only echo what others have said, keep fighting your corner, you are in the right. If anyone needs my case ref as an example resolution, go ahead, I was ticket 17138820.

[kennysarmy]

The A1 Plus is now know as Microsoft 365 Apps for Faculty / Students - this will give your users the ability to install and activate Office Applications themselves on devices at home.

 

Pete

 

This?

 

 

 

So I'm good to go trying to deploy Shared Computer Activation for Office 365?

[FragglePete]

This?

 

[ATTACH=CONFIG]58230[/ATTACH]

 

 

So I'm good to go trying to deploy Shared Computer Activation for Office 365?

Yup. But this I believe is more for being able to install Office at home. The A1 Plus does the SCA I believe, but it may just do it on A1. I'm not sure. I don't have the Microsoft 365 Apps assigned to anyone at the moment because I still have A1 Plus. Oh, the joys of Microsoft Licensing.

 

Pete