Office 365 ProPlus Installs on non-Nexus Machines

Nexus stations will receive the Office 365 ProPlus suite of apps (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Teams, S4B, etc) automatically.

If you would like to install Office 365 ProPlus on any non-Nexus machines...

IST has all the gory details on their Microsoft Office 365 page. You may also want to skim their Office 365 Frequently Asked Questions. I'll provide a short version here, but if anything I mention conflicts with information that IST provides, trust IST. When viewing IST's documentation, keep in mind that references to "Office 365" typically refers to your login account for provided Microsoft services, while references to "Office 365 ProPlus" refers to the MS Office Suite (Word, Excel, etc.).

All faculty/staff/grads/undergrads have access to up to 5 installs of Office 365 ProPlus on work and personal devices at no cost. On non-Nexus computers, you'll need to provide your UW credentials once a month to keep it active. If you leave UW, you can subscribe directly with MS for $79/year.

Here's the steps:

  1. Ensure your machine is fully patched with the latest updates from Microsoft (Windows Update) or Apple (System Update) - this should help avoid weird issues.
  2. Sneak in a reboot to ensure your machine begins the process in a good state.
  3. Rinse and repeat #1 and #2 until your machine is fully updated.
  4. Login with the admin account on your machine if you use a separate admin account for upgrades/installs.
  5. Close all Office applications and uninstall any previous version of Office that you have installed on your machine.
  6. Sneak in a reboot.
  7. Login again with your admin account.
  8. Near the top of the beeHive is a link to O365 where you can login to your Office 365 account. When logging in, use yourUWuserid@uwaterloo.ca.
  9. In the top-right corner of the Office 365 screen, you'll notice a pull-down for "Install Office". On that, select "Office 365 apps"
  10. Follow the prompts to get things installed. Be patient since it's big and some things won't happen instantly.
  11. Logout from your admin account and reboot.
  12. Login again with your regular account on the machine.
  13. Once installed, start Word, and you'll be prompted for your UW credentials to activate it. Again, use yourUWuserid@uwaterloo.ca when prompted for a user name. On the screen that mentions "Allow my organization to manage my device", uncheck that and click "No, sign into this app only". No worries if you get a "Something went wrong" pop-up at some point - all should be good (device management is not enabled at UW).
  14. Call me superstitious, but I don't want to end with 13 points, so pat yourself on the back for a job well done.
Again, you have 5 activations you can associate with your account. It is possible to "Sign out" of a license on a machine you are no longer using. To do this, login to O365, click "Install Office". Then, in the top-right and select "Other install options". Under "Office apps & devices" click "View apps & devices". You can then view the list of "Devices" that you are signed in on and "Sign out" of any that you aren't using. If you later revisit a machine you've signed out of, or 30 days have passed, you'll again be prompted to enter your UW credentials.

Post Install Tidbits

Hopefully no surprises, but if you run into any issues, send a note to PsychIT@uwaterloo.ca and one of us will get back to you as soon as possible.

For all the gory details or to troubleshoot yourself, IST has several pages of information which you may want to visit.


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Last Updated: by bee@uwaterloo.ca