This browser is no longer supported.
Upgrade to Microsoft Edge to take advantage of the latest features, security updates, and technical support.
![](data:image/svg+xml, %3Csvg xmlns='http://www.w3.org/2000/svg' height='64' class='font-weight-bold' style='font: 600 30.11764705882353px "SegoeUI", Arial' width='64'%3E%3Ccircle fill='hsl(243.2, 77%, 33%)' cx='32' cy='32' r='32' /%3E%3Ctext x='50%25' y='55%25' dominant-baseline='middle' text-anchor='middle' fill='%23FFF' %3EMP%3C/text%3E%3C/svg%3E)
I have a copy of MS Office Home and Business 2016. I wanted to assign this to other computer. Is it possible?
Welcome to Q&A forum ~
Office Home & Business can be installed on a single computer.
If you try to install and activate this version of Office on a new computer, please uninstall Office from the original computer first.
On the new computer, sign in to your My Account page and click Install.
If after finish installing, Office is not activated, you may active Office over the phone.
For more information, please refer to "Activate after reinstalling or moving Office".
If Office still can not be activated on the new machine, it's best to contact Microsoft on browser to get help.
Any updates, please feel free to let me know.
If the answer is helpful, please click "Accept Answer" and kindly upvote it. If you have extra questions about this answer, please click "Comment".
Note: Please follow the steps in our documentation to enable e-mail notifications if you want to receive the related email notification for this thread.
Good Morning @Emily Hua-MSFT ,
In case I can't locate where it is activated, can I override the activation to my new computer? The issue here is that it is activated without creating MS Account. I just activated it using the installed MS Home and Business 2016.
Thank you.
> The issue here is that it is activated without creating MS Account.
Once the Office license is bound to one Microsoft account, we can not transfer the license to other accounts.
So, as you said, you will activate the Office without creating new MS Account.
Here I make a simple summary: you can transfer your Office Home & Business 2016 to a new computer, and activate it via the licensed Microsoft Account, but you can not transfer the Office license to a new Microsoft Account.
In case I don't know what computer the License is activated on, can I still activate it without uninstalling it to the previous computer? Supposed that the license key we activated is not bound to any Microsoft Account.
@Emily Hua-MSFT In case I don't know what computer the License is activated on, can I still activate it without uninstalling it to the previous computer? Supposed that the license key we activated is not bound to any Microsoft Account.
Thanks for your response.
> In case I don't know what computer the License is activated on, can I still activate it without uninstalling it to the previous computer?
If you successfully activated Office on the new device, you can not uninstall Office on previous computer.
But migrating Office may encounter activation problems in the later stages, and we even need to try phone activation, or contact Microsoft's team to get help on activation.
So, to avoid problems with Office, we recommend that you uninstall Office on previous computer like the following image shown.
In the organization, the admin can make a list that includes the machine information (Such as computer name, S/N number), key, account. This makes easier to manage devices and accounts.
> Supposed that the license key we activated is not bound to any Microsoft Account.
Unlike the volume license versions of Office 2016, which are activated with a key, for the retail versions of Office 2016, we need to bind the keys to the accounts.
Hi @Michael Panelo
Please check whether my information is helpful, any issues welcome to post back.
As the retail versions of Office 2016 need to be redeem the purchase that bind the license to your account, so I can not follow your supposition.