Volume License Serializer For Office 2016 For Mac

16.16 is the final version for Office 2016 - it will continue to receive security updates like 16.16.2 but no more major versions. 16.17 and up is only for Office 2019 licenses, but the VL serializer to go with it won't be out for a couple more weeks. Level 1 Comment deleted by user 2 years ago level 2. Please input your passport account name and your password / กรุณากรอกบัญชี PSU Passport และรหัสผ่าน.

Some background:

In my organisation I deploy software with Munki, previously with Office 2011, it was pretty easy to deploy and get a fully up to date install of Office 2011

  • Install the full volume licence installer from the VLSC site which was version 14.3.0 and around 1Gb
  • Let Munki apply the latest combo updater it has (14.5.8) and around 120Mb

And we’re done. Pretty easy and painless and about 1.1Gb of data to send to the client.

However, in Office 2016, Microsoft has sandboxed their applications, which is the right thing do™. However what this means is that any shared content the apps use such as frameworks, fonts, and proofing tools all need to be contained within each application bundle. Previously in Office 2011, the apps could get this content from a shared location such as /Library/Application Support

This means that our Office 2016 installer package is only about 1.3Gb, the installer then just copies the same files into each app bundle at install time via a postinstall script. That results in each app being rather large as you can see here.

It also means that the Office 2016 updates that Microsoft offer for each app are huge, approx 800Mb per app.

So now if we applied our same methodology of deploying Office 2011 to Office 2016 we would end up with something like this:

  • Install the full Office 2016 VL installer (1.3GB)
  • Let Munki apply each app update ~800Mb times 5 apps (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, Outlook)

That means we are pushing about 5gb to the client just to install office. Thats insane.

2016

Solution?

Well we only need the full VL installer for its special licensing package that generates the volume licence plist (/Library/Preferences/com.microsoft.office.licensingV2.plist)

Microsoft offer the latest version of the suite in a package that contains all the apps and is SKU-less, meaning no licensing (It can be licenced as 0365 or VL)

So we could just download the latest suite package which is about 1.3GB, then install that on our client machines, install the special licensing package on top to licence the suite and we’re done. We would only need to push about 1.3Gb to the client to have a fully up to date office 2016 installation. Thats much more manageable for remote sites with slow links, or even labs with lots of machines.

Any new updates to the apps would simply mean downloading the full suite package again, approx 1.3GB and pushing that to clients, still 10 times more than office 2011 combo updaters however, but much smaller than pushing each 2016 app update to the client.

Word is that Microsoft are working on Delta updates that will be much much smaller, but until then this might be a workable solution.

Where to get the latest full installer package?

The full suite package is available via the following FWLinks, its available via a CDN so choose the closest location to you for the fastest download.

Dublin:
Office 2016 for Mac suite: http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID= 532572

Puerto Rico:
Office 2016 for Mac suite: http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=525133

Singapore:
Office 2016 for Mac suite: http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID= 532577

Wait what? How do I get that special licensing package though?

If you open the VL installer package that you got from the Microsoft VLSC site with something like Pacifist, you will see the package we are talking about

This package “Office15_all_volume_licensing.pkg” is the one we are after.

To extract just this package we need to expand the Volume_Installer.pkg and then flatten the volume_licencing.pkg

So bust open the terminal and use these commands:

Unpack the installer package into a new directory on our desktop. Note: this new directory should not already exist, the pkgutil command will create it

Now lets flatten the licensing package and save it on our desktop

Volume License Serializer For Office 2016 For Mac

So now we have standalone serialised package that can be deployed to any machine and it will generate the volume licence plist that office 2016 looks for.

Volume license serializer for office 2016 for mac

Why not just package up and deploy the com.microsoft.office.licensingV2 plist?

Volume License Serializer For Office 2016 For Mac Download

In the past, a lot of people, myself included, would often just create a package of a pre-created license plist from one machine and then deploy that package to multiple machines. That was enough for Office to pickup the correct licensing and everything seemed good in the world.

However the official word from Microsoft is that this is bad ju-ju and we should stop doing this as it is unsupported and may break your Office install. Instead run the serializer package on every machine that requires it.

Microsoft plans to make the serialiser package available as a standalone package on the VLSC ISO, so this extracting and flattening process will soon be redundant. Until then this might help you out.

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Applies to:Office for Mac, Office 2019 for Mac

To use Office for Mac in your organization, it needs to be activated. How you activate Office for Mac depends on whether your organization has an Office 365 (or Microsoft 365) plan or has a volume license agreement. But in both cases your users won't have to enter any product keys.

Volume

Note

If you're an Office user trying to activate a personal copy of Office for Mac, follow these instructions instead of reading this article.

Activate Office 365 versions of Office for Mac

Volume License Serializer For Office 2016 For Mac Free

If your organization has an Office 365 (or Microsoft 365) plan, make sure you assign each user a license for Office before you deploy Office for Mac to your users. If you don't assign a user a license, you can still deploy Office for Mac to that user, but the user won't be able to activate and use Office.

For Office 365 (and Microsoft 365) customers, Office for Mac activates by contacting the Office Licensing Service on the internet. The Office Licensing Service keeps track of which users are licensed and how many computers they've installed Office on.

After you deploy Office for Mac, your users are prompted to activate Office the first time they use it. Make sure users are connected to the internet when they activate Office.

On the Sign in to Activate Office screen, users should select Sign In, and then enter their email address and password. After they sign in, users may see an alert asking for permission to access the Microsoft identity stored in their keychain. They should select Allow or Always Allow to continue.

While you can deploy Office for Mac for your users, your users need to sign in and activate Office for Mac for themselves. That's to ensure that the Office Licensing Service properly associates Office for Mac with the correct licensed user.

A program on the Mac, the Office365ServiceV2 daemon, runs once a day to check the user's subscription status. The computer must be connected to the internet to contact the Office Licensing Service. If the computer can't contact the Office Licensing Service after nine days, the user sees a warning message when working in an app.

If the computer can't contact the Office Licensing Service after 30 days, Office goes into reduced functionality mode. This means that the user can open, view, and print existing documents in an Office app, but can't create or edit documents. The user also sees a message in the app that most features aren't available. After the user connects to the internet and the subscription status is verified, all the features of Office are available again.

For each user that you've assigned a license to, you can deploy and activate Office for Mac on up to five Macs for the user. If you need to provide Office for Mac on a sixth computer for a user, you need to deactivate an existing installation first. Deactivating an installation doesn't remove Office for Mac from the computer. Instead, the installation goes into reduced functionality mode.

Users can sign into the Office 365 portal to deactivate an existing installation by going to My account > Install status > Manage installs. Or, you can deactivate an installation as an Office 365 administrator. Sign into the Office 365 portal, go to the admin center, and then go to Users > Active Users. Select the user, and then choose Edit for the Office installs property of the user.

Activate volume licensed versions of Office for Mac

To activate a volume licensed version of Office 2019 for Mac, use the Volume License (VL) Serializer. You can download the VL Serializer by signing into the Volume Licensing Service Center (VLSC). You run the VL Serializer on each computer. By doing this, your users won't see any activation prompts when they first open Office 2019 for Mac.

For more information, see Overview of the Volume License (VL) Serializer.

Volume License Serializer For Office 2016 For Mac Os

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