# Transferring Office 365 subscription without reinstalling **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [August 23, 2016, 4:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/transferring-office-365-subscription-without-reinstalling/763743 "2016-08-23T16:56:51Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![GESancMan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gesancman/32/2923_2.png) [@GESancMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GESancMan)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2016, 4:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/transferring-office-365-subscription-without-reinstalling/763743/1 "2016-08-23T16:56:51Z")
My Google-fu is weak, I’m not finding a good answer to this. Here’s the situation: last Christmas my girlfriend and I bought a Surface Pro 3 for her daughter. It came with an Office 365 Home subscription, which can be shared with four other people. I installed it on her tablet, entering the product key. A few months later, Girlfriend and I bought new computers, with Windows 10, so decided at that point to take advantage of the new version of Office via daughter’s subscription. So we had her share it with us. In June, Daughter broke the tablet. We had bought an extended warranty, so we got a replacement, no problem. Except that the original tablet got shipped off to Microsoft, along with the original Office installation. I’m kicking myself for being so stupid about all of this. I should have installed Office on my machine first, then shared it with Daughter. So what I’m trying to figure out is if I can transfer the product key to my “shared” installation, on my computer, and make it the primary installation. Failing that, I would be fine with purchasing a new subscription and starting over. The catch is, I really, really, really don’t want to have to deactivate or uninstall Office. I’m using the free 1TB of Onedrive space; I’ve got about 500 GB of crap on there. It took a week (168 hours) of continuous uploading to get it all uploaded, and I don’t want to have to go through that again. I’m terrified that uninstalling and reinstalling means Microsoft will delete everything in my Onedrive account. Am I screwed here, or is there hope? ---
**Author:** ![crazyjoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f14d63/32.png) [@crazyjoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/crazyjoe)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2016, 5:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/transferring-office-365-subscription-without-reinstalling/763743/2 "2016-08-23T17:17:43Z")
Deactivating an Office365 Install: > **[Deactivate an installation of Office - Microsoft Support](https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/deactivate-an-installation-of-office-767e3560-96ed-4b1c-806d-2fe01c529b1b?ui=en-us&rs=en-us&ad=us)** > > Learn how to deactivate an Office install that you shared with someone or deactivate an Office install so you can install it on another device. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2016, 5:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/transferring-office-365-subscription-without-reinstalling/763743/3 "2016-08-23T17:19:07Z")
Have you tried logging onto the Office 365 Microsoft portal site and seeing what options they have for updating your software? It should be the same login as your OneDrive account. ---
**Author:** ![GESancMan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gesancman/32/2923_2.png) [@GESancMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GESancMan)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2016, 6:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/transferring-office-365-subscription-without-reinstalling/763743/4 "2016-08-23T18:14:28Z")
The only option is to “repair” the install. I did that once before I uploaded all of my stuff to Onedrive, it just meant reinstalling Office. ---
**Author:** ![crazyjoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f14d63/32.png) [@crazyjoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/crazyjoe)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2016, 6:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/transferring-office-365-subscription-without-reinstalling/763743/5 "2016-08-24T18:45:53Z")
What you want to do can be done via the link I posted above…you want to deactivate the installation on one of your computers (specifically, the one that got sent back to the manufacturer) so it becomes available for re-use on another machine. ---
**Author:** ![scr4](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/59ef9b/32.png) [@scr4](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scr4)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2016, 1:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/transferring-office-365-subscription-without-reinstalling/763743/6 "2016-08-25T13:51:13Z")
I think the Office license is tied to a user’s Microsoft account, not a particular installation. So Daughter should be able to log on to [office.com](http://office.com) using her account, and deactivate the installation on the broken Surface and download/install/activate Office on a new computer. ---
**Author:** ![Isilder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/cc9497/32.png) [@Isilder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Isilder)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2016, 9:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/transferring-office-365-subscription-without-reinstalling/763743/7 "2016-08-27T09:04:46Z")
> [@gesancman](#): > > i’m terrified that uninstalling and reinstalling means microsoft will delete everything in my onedrive account. certainly WON’T. Your one drive account will be there as long as you don’t cancel your “one drive” account. You can use your girfriends account to modify your office, it won’t change your onedrive.