"This situation is beyond our competence" - how to quickly and easily stay without ESD keys

An ESD license is an excellent choice for a quick purchase of genuine software: paid the bill - in a couple of hours you received the coveted genuine key. But even if you buy it from an official Microsoft reseller, this does not at all guarantee that you can use your key when you want it, even if you do not violate the terms of the license agreement. More details under cat.



Our company is engaged in IT outsourcing of enterprises. A year ago, we took on a service from a manufacturing company that had just given up the services of another organization. According to the stories of the employees, this "parting" did not go well, there were mutual misunderstandings and reproaches, nevertheless, they paid off with the supplier, there were no unresolved issues. It is important to note that the previous organization was also a hardware and software supplier, which is very convenient.



When they began to audit the farm, which we got for servicing, we noticed that the workers carefully monitored the licenses: there was a whole folder with all the keys / subscriptions / documents confirming ownership. A rare case, but nevertheless, it seemed to us a big plus.



There were no major incidents with equipment during the maintenance period until recently, when it was necessary to reinstall the OS on one of the computers. The OS was installed, the ESD key for Windows was entered - the system was activated. Installed Office 2016 Home and Business, entered the ESD key for Office and here the fun began. We saw the message "Key has already been used, please sign in to your Microsoft account." We double-checked all the symbols, making sure that this is a permanent license, not a subscription. We decided to log into an MS account. Having tried all possible mailbox addresses for this action, it became clear that the organization does not have a MS account.



Then, using the chat of MS technical support and a specialist named Jai, we decided to find out how Office was activated for the first time if the client does not have an account. We provided a key and possible e-mail addresses to which our key could be bound. "VOIL!" It became clear that the supplier linked the key sold to the organization to his personal MS account. And to take advantage of Office again, it is necessary to target PCs simply log on to his account.







We contacted this supplier, to which we received the expected answer that “if you want something, we can come and do it for money”... Namely, log into your account. And this will have to be done every time we need to reinstall Office using ESD keys, since all Office ESD was purchased from one supplier.



The management of the organization was slightly confused, because ESD keys were purchased, all the necessary documents are in place, but these keys cannot be used without a personal paid visit of the supplier. All the people involved in this story understood that this was an unfortunate combination of circumstances. The supplier and the outsourcer were one person and he decided not to make it difficult for himself by creating an account for the organization, but simply activated the license on his account. And nobody could control the correctness of these actions on the side of the organization.



In the TP chat, they could not help us, since they do not have competencies in this matter, and they gave a link to the created incident, offering to continue the communication via e-mail.



After several letters, it became clear that no one in this world can solve the problem of transferring keys from one account to another. Here are the main excerpts from MS emails (I've removed multiple apologies for the inconvenience):









As you understand, we were sent back to the TP page, from which we were previously sent to communicate by e-mail.

What do we have in the bottom line

• ESD keys purchased but cannot be used.
• The supplier offers to activate the already purchased Office for money, because the company's specialists cannot do it without it.
• . , .
• Microsoft .

It is especially important to note that in this situation, no one except the end customers who bought the original product was in the red. The supplier (which is the official reseller of the official distributor in Russia "1C-Gandalf") continues to sell licenses.



But if the supplier's actions can still be attributed to some human factors, then it is depressing that Microsoft not only cannot / does not want to take any measures in relation to unscrupulous suppliers that spoil their reputation, but also cannot solve the technical problem (key transfer) on their side.



Be careful with ESD licenses and vendor selection!