Geek projects, tidbits and things I'm working on at the moment…

We had an employee who had a broken installation of Office 2010 Pro Plus. We use Microsoft Online Services (now called Office 365) and in particular we use their E3 plan for most of our employees.

Simply doing a …

cd "%ProgramFiles(x86)%\Microsoft Office\Office14\"

dir *.vbs (you're looking for the OSPP.VBS file.)

cscript ospp.vbs /dstatus
(will show you something like this)
Microsoft (R) Windows Script Host Version 5.8
Copyright (C) Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

---Processing--------------------------
---------------------------------------
SKU ID: ae28e0ab-590f-4be3-b7f6-438dda6c0b1c
LICENSE NAME: Office 14, OfficeProPlusSub-Subscription edition
LICENSE DESCRIPTION: Office 14, TIMEBASED_SUB channel
LICENSE STATUS:  ---LICENSED---
ERROR CODE: 4004FC04 as licensed
ERROR CODE: 0x4004FC04
ERROR DESCRIPTION: The Software Licensing Service reported that 
the application is running within the timebased validity period.
Last 5 characters of installed product key: HMBFK
REMAINING GRACE: 26 days  (37247 minute(s) before expiring)
---------------------------------------
---------------------------------------
---Exiting-----------------------------

C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Office\Office14>

Can show you whether or not you’ve got a problem. If you do, you can reactivate the Office subscription if yours shows —NOTIFICATIONS— for its license status by going into directory…

C:\Users\faileduser>cd "C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\microsoft shared\OFFICE14"

and running

osaui.exe /K or /F

via cmd with either /K to do a password reset or /F to change users or reset the subscription back to basics. You can also do a /r if you need to remove another device which is using your current subscription.

Here’s a couple of links:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2684927  (Very helpful! Gives the actual error codes your users will probably see!)

http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/word-help/reactivate-subscription-license-by-using-osaui-exe-HA102053194.aspx

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2512834  (Remove some other device from your subscription. /r will show you a list and you can see whom to remove!)

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg702620.aspx (General troubleshooting tips for Office 365 Pro Plus)

http://blogs.technet.com/b/lystavlen/archive/2011/12/05/in-opp-five-is-the-magic-number-but-then-what.aspx

That damn 169.254.x.x IP address has caused me more headaches than I care to count. Here’s how I turn it off:

1. Open up registry and go to HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Tcpip\Parameters.
2. Add REG_DWORD of IPAutoconfigurationEnabled with a value of 0 (zero.)
3. REBOOT!

Seriously, you can also apply that command down @ the adapter level too. Typically when I’ve got a problem w/ APIPA I’ve got a bigger issue but can’t see it yet. As an example, once I turned off APIPA on a laptop I could see that the OS just didn’t like the static IP address I was trying to configure it with. Once I changed the IP to something different, it worked just fine. GO FIGURE!

Here’s a couple of links:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/244268/en-us

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/220874

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/307287

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/APIPA

http://superuser.com/questions/482520/why-am-i-getting-a-169-ip-address-at-startup

http://www.dummies.com/how-to/content/automatic-private-ip-addressing-apipa.html

http://lyngtinh.blogspot.com/2011/12/how-to-disable-autoconfiguration-ipv4.html