Install Office 2024 on Windows

Office 2024 reaches you in one of two ways. Which one depends on the edition in your order. This guide covers both, from the email in your inbox to running Word on your PC. Activation has its own guide: Activate Office 2024.

What is in your order

Open your order confirmation email. You will find a 25-character product key, for example XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX. The same key is in your Lizensa account under My Library.

The edition decides how you install:

• Office Home 2024, Home & Student 2024 and Home & Business 2024 are retail editions. You redeem the key with Microsoft and install from your Microsoft account. You get nothing to download from us.
• Office Professional Plus 2024 and Standard 2024 are delivered as the volume-licensed LTSC edition from Microsoft: Office LTSC Professional Plus 2024 or Office LTSC Standard 2024. You install it with the installer in your Lizensa account and activate it with your key.

Product pages: Professional Plus, Standard, Home, Home & Student, Home & Business.

Before you start

• Windows 11 is the system Microsoft supports for Office 2024. Office LTSC 2024 also runs on Windows 10 LTSC 2019 and 2021.
• You need a 1.1 GHz two-core processor, 4 GB of RAM, 4 GB of free disk space and a 1280 x 768 display.
• You need administrator rights on the PC.
• Remove older Office versions first. Microsoft asks for this before you install Office LTSC 2024. Open Settings > Apps > Installed apps, select the old Office, then Uninstall. Uninstalling Office does not delete your documents.

Getting the software

Home, Home & Student, Home & Business: from Microsoft

1. Go to office.com/setup.
2. Sign in with your Microsoft account, or create one. Remember this account. You need it for every later reinstall.
3. Enter your product key without the hyphens.
4. Follow the prompts until Microsoft confirms the product is in your account.

The key is now tied to your Microsoft account. You will not need it again for this PC.

Professional Plus and Standard: from your Lizensa account

Your download link is in your order email and in your account. The file is an ISO image of about 3.4 to 3.8 GB.

1. Sign in to Lizensa and open My Library.
2. Find Office 2024 and select Download.
3. Save the file to a folder you can find again, such as Downloads.

The link is created when you select Download and stays valid for up to 15 minutes. If a download breaks off, select Download again. You get a fresh link each time.

The ISO contains the 64-bit version of Office in one language. We offer it in up to 33 languages. Your library gives you the language of the shop you ordered from. If that language is not available for your edition, you get English (en-US). If you need a different language, contact us before you install.

Installing Office 2024

Retail editions

1. Sign in at account.microsoft.com and open Services & subscriptions.
2. Find Office 2024 and select Install.
3. Start the setup file. Depending on your browser, select Run (Edge), Setup (Chrome) or Save File (Firefox). If you saved it, open the file from your downloads.
4. Windows asks: "Do you want to allow this app to make changes to your device?" Select Yes.
5. Wait for "You're all set! Office is installed now". Select Close.

Office downloads from Microsoft while it installs. Keep the PC online until the message appears.

Professional Plus and Standard

1. Open File Explorer and go to the downloaded ISO.
2. Right-click the file and select Mount. Windows shows the ISO as a new drive, for example E:.
3. Open the drive. You see setup.exe, configuration.xml, install.cmd and an Office folder.
4. Right-click install.cmd and select Run as administrator. When Windows asks whether the app may make changes, select Yes.
5. The Office installer window opens and shows its progress. It installs the apps from the ISO, so it does not need the internet.
6. When the window says installation is complete, close it.
7. Right-click the drive in File Explorer and select Eject.

Start with install.cmd, not setup.exe. The file setup.exe is Microsoft's Office Deployment Tool. It only works with the instructions in configuration.xml, and install.cmd passes them on. If you prefer the command line, open Command Prompt as administrator on the mounted drive and run:

setup.exe /configure configuration.xml

Office always installs on the system drive, usually C:. Microsoft does not let you change that.

Professional Plus installs Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, OneNote and Access. Standard installs Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook and OneNote. Office LTSC 2024 has no Publisher. Teams is a separate download from Microsoft.

Activating Office

• Retail editions: open Word and sign in with the Microsoft account you used at office.com/setup. Accept the licence agreement. If the Activation Wizard appears, follow its prompts.
• Professional Plus and Standard: the installer does not contain your key. Office starts with Microsoft's generic volume key for KMS servers (GVLK). You replace it with the key from your order, then activate.

Open Command Prompt as administrator and run these two commands, with your own key in place of the placeholder:

cscript "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office16\OSPP.VBS" /inpkey:XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX
cscript "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office16\OSPP.VBS" /act

If activation succeeds, the second command shows <Product activation successful>. Check the result with:

cscript "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office16\OSPP.VBS" /dstatus

The status line should read ---LICENSED---. The way through Word's menus and all error codes are in Activate Office 2024.

No internet on this PC?

Installing Professional Plus or Standard from the ISO works offline. Online activation does not, so use the telephone:

1. Install your key with the first command above (/inpkey); that step works offline. Then open Word. If the Activation Wizard appears, select "I want to activate the software by telephone", then Next.
2. Select your country or region and call the number the wizard shows.
3. Give the installation ID shown in the wizard. Enter the confirmation ID you receive, then select Next.

The command-line version of these steps is under telephone activation in the activation guide.

Check that the installation worked

1. Select Start and type Word. Word should appear in the results.
2. Open Word and select File > Account.
3. Under Product Information you see the edition you installed, for example Office LTSC Professional Plus 2024.

If the edition does not match your order, check that you used the right installer. Uninstall Office and start again with the matching download.

If something goes wrong

Word opens, but a message bar says Office is not activated. The installation worked; only activation is missing. A volume installation without your key runs in a grace period. Enter your key as shown in the activation guide. Background: error 0x4004F00C.

Office tries to activate and reports 0xC004F074. Professional Plus and Standard start with Microsoft's generic key for company activation servers (KMS), and Office cannot reach such a server. You do not need one. Replace that key with your own as shown above. See error 0xC004F074.

The key from your order is rejected as not valid. Check that the edition installed matches your order. A Standard key does not activate Professional Plus, and a retail key does not activate the LTSC edition. See error 0xC004F050.

You started setup.exe and no installation began. setup.exe needs the instructions in configuration.xml. Run install.cmd instead, as described above.

Setup stops because another Office version is installed. Uninstall every older Office, including 32-bit versions, then restart the PC. 32-bit and 64-bit Office cannot be installed side by side.

You cannot mount the ISO. Download it again from your library; a broken-off download leaves an incomplete file. If mounting still fails, contact our support with the exact message you see.

office.com/setup says "This product key has already been used". The key is already in a Microsoft account, perhaps from an earlier attempt. Sign in at account.microsoft.com with that account and install from Services & subscriptions.

office.com/setup says "This product key isn't meant for your region". Microsoft asks you to redeem an Office key in the country or region where it was purchased. Do not try other keys. Contact our support with your order number.

Still stuck? Contact our support and include your order number and the exact message you see.