Installing Office 2019 - Device based licencing is greyed out.

[TwistedHelixis]

So I have always hated MS licencing, I believe its someone job at MS to actually make this has complicated and painful as is possible.

 

We ( primary school) mainly use G Suite but some staff + pupils also use office 2013 pro, so I decided to get them upgraded to Office 2019 pro plus. I recently contacted a company, told them we needed some Office 2019 pro plus licences for the school and they supplied me with a MS licencing portal details.

 

I have downloaded the files from our licencing portal + MAK key.

I have got my head around the fact I need to create a setup folder on C and then create the installer xml config files.

Just using the basic xml file I found online I created the installer and I was also able to install onto Office onto a test PC.

 

I then wanted to control the install a bit more so found out I needed to create a config.xml file using the Online Office Customization Tool so started to fill this out, but when I get to the product activation section I am only able to select 'user' based activation.

With our Office 2013 I was able to install one version on each machine and this would get licenced for everyone on that machine, which is what I want to do with our Office 2019 but both 'Shared computer' and 'Device based' options are greyed out.

 

What do I need to do to get device based setup?

 

BTW - when I open the licensing portal it says I have 50 activations or seats. These would get used up in no time if each user needed a licence on a shared device.

Edited December 20, 2020 by TwistedHelixis

[snagrat]

Sounds as though you are getting mixed up between Office 2019 and Office 365.

 

Office 365 can activate via a MAK, Office 365 activates against the user account (Device Based Activation is possible but not on your licensing)

 

The xml files that come down with the installer, which one did you use?

[TwistedHelixis]

I deleted the ones that can down from the installer and used this which i grabbed from a site

 

Edited December 20, 2020 by TwistedHelixis

[TwistedHelixis]

If I ignore the licencing section in the Online Office Customization Tool and then export the config file, I end up with the following...

 

 

Can I just change the 'device based licencing from 0 to 1, even though I couldn't change it in the config tool or does the licencing not work like this, very confusing.

 

Basically our ICT suite could have any number of different staff or pupils, so trying to workout how I get Office licenced for this.

 

The licencing company just needed the amount of full time staff (200 hours per year), they didn't ask about pupil numbers.

 

Have we been sold the wrong license?

Edited December 20, 2020 by TwistedHelixis

[snagrat]

I would try it with the downloaded xml files. Using the Enterprise one for Office 2019. The only thing to change is to remove the Visio product from the code.

 

Sounds like you have a OVS-ES license agreement which is based on Staff count only.

[TwistedHelixis]

Sounds like you have a OVS-ES license agreement which is based on Staff count only.

Yes I think that is what we were told to get.

 

I would try it with the downloaded xml files. Using the Enterprise one for Office 2019. The only thing to change is to remove the Visio product from the code.

OK I'll give that a go and see what happens.

[TwistedHelixis]

I would try it with the downloaded xml files.

 

YAY that did it :0)

 

The help page I was following started of by saying 'delete the downloaded config files'. and create new ones lol