Microsoft 365 apps show "Unlicensed Product" or "There's a problem with your account" even though you have a valid subscription. Word, Excel, and Outlook display a yellow banner and features are disabled.

Common error messages:

"Unlicensed Product"
"There's a problem with your account"
"We've run into a problem with your Microsoft 365 subscription"
"Couldn't verify subscription"

The Fix

Sign out of Office completely and sign back in with your work/school account (not personal Microsoft account).

  1. Open Word or Excel
  2. Click your name/profile picture (top right)
  3. Click Sign out
  4. Close all Office apps
  5. Reopen and click Sign in
  6. Use your work email (user@company.com), not @outlook.com or @hotmail.com

If That Doesn't Work: Clear Cached Credentials

Old tokens cause activation failures. Clear them from Credential Manager:

# Open Credential Manager
control keymgr.dll

Under Windows Credentials, remove all entries containing:

  • MicrosoftOffice15 or MicrosoftOffice16
  • OneDrive
  • SSO_POP

Close all Office apps and sign in again.

If That Doesn't Work: Repair Office

  1. Close all Office apps
  2. Open Settings > Apps > Installed apps
  3. Find Microsoft 365, click three dots, select Modify
  4. Choose Quick Repair first
  5. If that fails, run Online Repair

If That Doesn't Work: Run SaRA Command Line

Download the Microsoft Support and Recovery Assistant Enterprise and run:

# Reset Office activation completely
SaRAcmd.exe -S ResetOfficeActivation -AcceptEula -CloseOffice

Or run the activation troubleshooter:

SaRAcmd.exe -S OfficeActivationScenario -AcceptEula -CloseOffice

If That Doesn't Work: Clear Licensing Data

Nuclear option - removes all Office licensing tokens:

taskkill /f /im WINWORD.EXE
taskkill /f /im EXCEL.EXE
taskkill /f /im OUTLOOK.EXE
del /q "%localappdata%\Microsoft\Office\16.0\Licensing\*"
del /q "%localappdata%\Microsoft\Office\Licenses\*"

Restart Office and sign in fresh.

Verify

Open Word and go to File > Account. You should see your subscription name (Microsoft 365 Business, etc.) and "Subscription Product" under Product Information. The yellow "Unlicensed" banner should be gone.

Check activation via command line:

cscript "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\root\Office16\OSPP.VBS" /dstatus

Still having licensing issues? Contact us for Microsoft 365 support.