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I have ONE office 2013 installation among a little more than half a dozen that is not getting activated by our KMS.

Funny enough it is on my machine which got reinstalled some time ago - "last" of all, after we redid the KMS (moving it to Server 2012)-

I started getting a nagging activation wizard yesterday,, claiming I have 4 days left to activate and I should ensure I am connected to the coporate network. Well, I am.

It claims error code 0x4004f00c. Which google tells me does not return a reference.

The KMS works - all other machiens have no problem, and my WIndowss itself has also been activated and shows me 254931 minutes left - so it is recent (and yes, an office key is installed).

THere is no event anywhere that explains the errr or shows a warning. The KMS currently has 25 machines, is active and has licensed 345 requests, so it is "hot". It safely activates windows server and workstations.

Anyone has a clue how to debug that? TO be clear - this is not "legal licensing" and not a "try to bypass licensing". By all technical means, this KMS should activate office and does so - it is just one machine where this fails for a technical reason and I want this debugged ;) Preferable before loosing my own office insall ;)

We use KMS for technical reasons, btw - KMS and certain other services are isolated on a non-trusted operational domain. So, domain activation is not something we do at the moment.

Update:

I found ospp.vbs and it returns to me:

---------------------------------------
SKU ID: (removed)
LICENSE NAME: Office 15, OfficeProPlusVL_KMS_Client edition
LICENSE DESCRIPTION: Office 15, VOLUME_KMSCLIENT channel
BETA EXPIRATION: 01/01/1601
LICENSE STATUS:  ---OOB_GRACE---
ERROR CODE: 0x4004F00C
ERROR DESCRIPTION: The Software Licensing Service reported that the application
is running within the valid grace period.
REMAINING GRACE: 4 days  (6157 minute(s) before expiring)
Last 5 characters of installed product key: (removed)
Activation Type Configuration: ALL
        KMS machine name from DNS: (removed)
        Activation Interval: 120 minutes
        Renewal Interval: 10080 minutes
        KMS host caching: Enabled
---------------------------------------

I try a manual activation and finally get a sensible error:

C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Office\Office15>cscript OSPP.VBS /act
Microsoft (R) Windows Script Host Version 5.8
Copyright (C) Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

---Processing--------------------------
---------------------------------------
Installed product key detected - attempting to activate the following product:
SKU ID: (removed)
LICENSE NAME: Office 15, OfficeProPlusVL_KMS_Client edition
LICENSE DESCRIPTION: Office 15, VOLUME_KMSCLIENT channel
Last 5 characters of installed product key: GVGXT
ERROR CODE: 0xC004F038
ERROR DESCRIPTION: The Software Licensing Service reported that the product coul
d not be activated. The count reported by your Key Management Service (KMS) is i
nsufficient. Please contact your system administrator.
---------------------------------------
---------------------------------------
---Exiting-----------------------------

Is the office limit still 5 activations? We are currently exactly at it (due to retiring laptops for tablet replacements that - well - did not arrive yet).

1 Answer 1

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I would check for : -if there is a connection over to KMS server (1688 TCP ) -if the computer sees the network as a domain . -if you have a logged atempt to activate that 2013 Office .

If that doesn't help I would take a look at http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee939272.aspx - KMS troubleshooting .

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  • All hose are ok - this is my work machine and I am logged in with a domain account, it just activated via KMS (as I said). Event logs are empty. Is there a command line command to force a word activation? I see Winwdows level activations happening - but nothing for word, not even on the client machine. What is the office request count? Is it not similar to win8 clients?
    – TomTom
    Jan 14, 2013 at 8:23
  • It should be something like C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Office\Office15\OSPP.VBS" /sethst:your.kms.server , to set the KMS , then to activate it C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office15\OSPP.VBS" /act
    – Alex H
    Jan 14, 2013 at 8:49
  • See my update. What is the necessary activation count for 2013? We currently have 5 offices running, thanks to retiring laptops.
    – TomTom
    Jan 14, 2013 at 9:00
  • Hmm I think that you might have already 5 activated , and you will need to take one out then retry to activate that one . Not sure how you do that but maybe a uninstall , or take our the old station out of the domain ?
    – Alex H
    Jan 14, 2013 at 9:03
  • No, KMS has no upper limit, but a lower limit. I think more we dont have enough activation requests. KMS never has a maximum limit.
    – TomTom
    Jan 14, 2013 at 9:18

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