Activating Purchased Office 365 Subscription

[thebiker]

I recently purchased a new Spectre x360 laptop and included a 1 year personal subscription in my order. After recieving my laptop and getting things setup, I decided to try activing my Office 365 subscription. I could find no information on how to activate my new subscription on my existing Microsoft account. After several failed tries, I initiated a tech chat session. The tech was very friendly and helped my get it activated. But they had to first check on my purchase order and then had to remote into my PC and log into my Microsoft account (with my help) and essentially purchase a 1 year subscription on my behalf. It looks fine and seems to have worked, but I'm quite miffed by the process used to activate my Office 365 subscription. This cannot be the normal process. I would have expected to recieve some kind of activation code or special web link to activate my subscription. At the very least, there should have been instruction provided to me on how to activate my subscription. I should not have to contact tech support and have them remote into my PC to activate it.

Has anyone else had this problem? What what have been the process for activating an Office 365 subscription?

Thanks

[AlexandruN]

If you go to support.hp.com and type in your product or serial number, you should be able to find the product specifications of your laptop under "product information".

Scrolling all the way down will show you what this product comes pre-installed with.

I had a look over some of the HP spectre 13 ac000 models and msot of them come with a 1 month trial of office 365.

Example:

https://support.hp.com/us-en/product/hp-spectre-13-ac000-x360-convertible-pc/14039877/document/c0541...

If a PC comes with a 1 year subscription of a software product from HP, the activation key is embedded in the motherboard and activates automatically after installation. This is why you will notice Windows 10 will never require you to enter an activation key unless you changed the motherboard yourself.

[thebiker]

I'm not talking about the 1 month trial version of Office 365. I actually purchased a 1 year subscription for Office 365 at the same time that I ordered the PC. Yes, I'm aware that the Windows 10 activation is embedded and activation occurs automatically. The process for activating my purchased 1 year subscription for Office 365 was never explained to me. The activation needs to be associated with my Microsoft account. This process should NOT require tech support and remote control of my PC.

[AlexandruN]

Ah, yes I agree activating it is rather confusing.

When I purchased it myself directly from HP, I thought they pulled a fast one on me.

I contacted tech support and after yelling at someone for half an hour, the kind person suggested I check my spam folder for the activation key ... there it was, lol.

Twas quite embarrassing.:smileyindifferent:

[CherylG]

Funny story @AlexandruN. If someone is going to prove me wrong I always prefer they do it before I make a total idiot of myself. 

[thebiker]

Thanks for the tip. I went back and checked my junk and spam for possible emails. However, none was found. I think someone at HP just messed up and did not provide me with any method to activate the subscription. The tech on the chat was able to activate it, but it was clear that it was not a normal process although at the end of the dialog they claimed it was the normal process. I have a copy of the chat session, if anyone wants to see it.

[CherylG · Accepted solution]

@thebiker

 I agree. It sounds like your order was not processed properly with the purchase of Office subscription. You should have been emailed the activation code or it included on a card inside the laptop box.

[Chester1231]

I am having the same issue.  I am setting up my new laptop HP -17Z with a pre-purchased 1-year office 365 subscription that I received yesterday.  I attempted to do it myself (software engineer retired) and only got the option for 30-day trial or purchase a new 1-year subscription.  Called the chat line and someone remoted into my new PC and gave me the 30-day trial.   What!!!!!  I even gave them my order number so they could confirm my purchase of the 1-year subscription.  Now I am waiting for them to call back to get my 1-year subscription installed.  I agree.... it is crazy that they have made this so difficult.  Maybe they should just furnish the product key in the shipment so we can do this ourselves.