I ... HATE ... MICROSOFT ...

[Pixilated]

I have a Mac Mini. Or MiniMac, or whatever it's called. I bought Office 365 University; the envelope reads "2 PCs or Macs" so I know I have an acceptable one ... and that's not the problem, at least not at the moment.

I attempted to instal it. This involved entering a 25-character Product Code, after which you go to a window that wants you to get into your email.

And I couldn't. I attempted repeatedly to get into my college email and it kept telling me that my password was wrong. I then went to the college website, clicked on "Student Email" and ... got in, no problem.

I had a chat with a Microsoft customer service rep, who was nice enough, but couldn't seem to do anything other than give me the standard cookie-cutter response for people who are completely locked out of their email, which was not my problem.

Anybody got any suggestions?

P.S. I should add that when I tried to reset my password, Microsoft started asking for security info that was, from the sounds of it, connected to a long-ago and long-forgotten previous account but which has NOTHING to do with my college email account. You will likely not be surprised to know that I couldn't remember any of it.

[Gizmo]

Do you have any anti tracking extensions on your browser? I quite often can't get into my email because I run Ghostery and Disconnect. It may be that the extensions see the college website as being internal but the third party application as being a tracker because its reaching out to another site.

(This is on Chrome btw.. not Mac. But wondering if its something similar)

[It's me]

Some sites have character restrictions, so if you have any "odd" characters in your password (&,#,@ etc.) that may be the problem. Try typing your password into a text editor then copy and pasting it into the browser.. that sometimes works to bypass the character checking, although not usually on professionally built sites.

[EricKei]

Hrm. Speaking of old accounts...Friend of mine's old 360 died - about a year ago - and he needed to re-input his username and pass onto the new system...He had had the system pretty much from the beginning and was now getting a Slim, and he had no clue what the info was anymore, simply because he hadn't used it in years. He tried calling MS for password (and therefore, ACCOUNT) recovery so he could access the tons of games he had bought over XBLive thru the years (which were still on his old hard drive and which were successfully transferred to the new system), and was given the runaround because his original email addy that he used no longer existed. They refused to even allow him to fax/email in a copy of his driver's license as proof of his identity x.x This, after he had literally spent upward of five hours being shuffled around to different people at their call center.

Gotta get in touch with him and find out how it turned out, this was a year ago...

[Plague*Star]

We sell these, and we've seen one or two problems people have had. I've also seen some posts on an edu mailing list about the same.

I have not seen a problem such as you are having. However, I think you are missing a step in the process.
You enter your key from your card. You then have to log in or create an account with Microsoft (i.e. a Hotmail or Live account). Once you've logged in, you then can send yourself an email to your .edu account that will contain the actual Product Activation Key to enter into Office.

Sorry if this is a little vague but I hope it puts you on the right track.

P*S

[Pixilated]

*snip* They refused to even allow him to fax/email in a copy of his driver's license as proof of his identity x.x This, after he had literally spent upward of five hours being shuffled around to different people at their call center.

Gotta get in touch with him and find out how it turned out, this was a year ago...

Wow, talk about irony. I filled out a form to do the exact same thing, and despite the fact I was able to include the subject lines of four emails I'd sent in my college email, AND the addresses to whom they were sent, Microsoft told me I hadn't sent in enough information to confirm that it was my account ...

This reminds me forcefully why I stopped using Microsoft for email and such in the first place.

We sell these, and we've seen one or two problems people have had. I've also seen some posts on an edu mailing list about the same.

I have not seen a problem such as you are having. However, I think you are missing a step in the process.
You enter your key from your card. You then have to log in or create an account with Microsoft (i.e. a Hotmail or Live account). Once you've logged in, you then can send yourself an email to your .edu account that will contain the actual Product Activation Key to enter into Office.

Sorry if this is a little vague but I hope it puts you on the right track.

P*S

The thing is, AFAIK I do in fact already have an account with Microsoft: it's my college email account (at least, I think that qualifies? Somebody suggested I open a new Microsoft account ... would that work? I don't care if I never use it again as long as it allows me to instal the blasted program.)

It's not an .edu account -- is that specifically a U.S. educational designation? My college email address is *mumblety-mumble* @stclairconnect.ca

[Pixilated]

Some sites have character restrictions, so if you have any "odd" characters in your password (&,#,@ etc.) that may be the problem. Try typing your password into a text editor then copy and pasting it into the browser.. that sometimes works to bypass the character checking, although not usually on professionally built sites.

Now that's an interesting point, because my email password does in fact have an "odd" character in it. I still don't understand why it allows me in from one website but not another ... however, I will definitely give your suggestion a try. (By the way, what is a 'text editor'? I have a program called Text Edit; it's similar to SimpleText ... a very basic word processing program. Would that suffice?)