Where to download Microsoft Office Pro 2016 without an office account?

August 8, 2018 9:40 PM

I have a legitimate product key for Microsoft Office Professional 2016. I want to be able to reinstall it on my computer (or a new computer if I upgrade). I do not have an office.com account or installation media.

For all of the older versions of Microsoft Office, one could download a trial install, and use it for up to a month before you needed to enter a product key (without which it would stop working). To acquire the new version which I have a key for, the microsoft website is saying that I need to re-download from the office.com account it was originally downloaded it from (and then enter my unique product key to activate it).

I did not download it, the program came with my computer. I do not have any possible way of contacting the seller to get assistance from them. I need to find a way to download the file or get a disc.

I've used search engines to look for answers, but I've only found links to microsoft's official "login here with your office.com account" tutorials, or to pirated versions on warez sites. I don't want to risk a virus or the program not working in the future, and I have a legit key, so I am not looking for a cracked version.

Does anyone know if there is a way around this problem? Thanks! :)

posted by ethical_caligula to Technology (8 answers total)

What happens if you make and then log in with an office account? Are you able to download it?
posted by brainmouse at 10:10 PM on August 8, 2018

Response by poster: What happens if you make and then log in with an office account? Are you able to download it?

I cannot login to office.com. To login to an office account you need to enter the product key associated with the account. I did not originally purchase this computer, so they key is tied to another person's account. When I enter my key I get an error message to this effect.
posted by ethical_caligula at 10:41 PM on August 8, 2018

Here's where to download Office if it came with your PC, but you'll still need to create an Office account. Have you already tried doing that?

[whoops, sorry, should have previewed]
posted by Aleyn at 10:41 PM on August 8, 2018 [1 favorite]

Best answer: This site appears to have direct links to the DVD images for Office, and this appears to be the link for Office 2016 Professional. The links point to Microsoft's servers, so they should be legitimate, even if they're not directly linked from MS's own websites.
posted by Aleyn at 10:53 PM on August 8, 2018 [2 favorites]

Best answer: According to the metadata dump maintained by heidoc.net, which I believe to be trustworthy, the SHA1 checksum for the English language version of the Office 2016 Professional Plus DVD is

213A8A0F8849516704101CB6C49F6A027B0D6D5F

If you install the 7-Zip archive manager, it adds a "CRC SHA" item to the Windows Explorer right-click menu that you can use to check the SHA1 checksum of any file.

If you manage to obtain en_office_professional_plus_2016_x86_x64_dvd_6962141.iso from any source - be that a random warez site or via BitTorrent or finding a path through the shifting sands around the official Digital River download mirrors - and its SHA1 checksum matches the one above, you can be quite sure that it's bit-identical with Microsoft's original release and therefore completely untainted by malware.

Personally I generally start the quest for a working download source by searching on the checksum rather than the filename.
posted by flabdablet at 10:53 PM on August 8, 2018 [6 favorites]

Best answer: The following Magnet link, obtained from some random Chinese blog, has just caused my torrent client to download the correct file with the correct SHA1 checksum.

magnet:?xt=urn:btih:D325149E93DF420BD79B92F66D5B9718BB97F418&dn=office+professional+plus+2016+x86+x64+en+us+msdn

Content-addressable data ftw!
posted by flabdablet at 11:23 PM on August 8, 2018 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: Thank you everyone! I am slackjaw in amazement at how fast you all resolved my issue!

I am familiar with bittorrent, but was wary of viruses. I understand and have used checksums, but for some reason it didn't occur to me to use them here. I believe I have everything necessary to solve this.

Thanks for the fantastic information and resources. :)
posted by ethical_caligula at 2:07 AM on August 9, 2018

I am familiar with bittorrent, but was wary of viruses. I understand and have used checksums, but for some reason it didn't occur to me to use them here.

As an aside for anybody else who finds this via search: if you have a known-good magnet:?xt=urn:btih:hexadecimalgibberish link to a file you want to download, the only file your BitTorrent client will successfully fetch for you when handed that link is one whose content will generate a hash code matching the one included in the link. That's not a SHA1 hash of the file content directly but it is an equivalently strong hash of the Merkle tree that the BitTorrent protocol relies on, and offers at least as strong a content integrity guarantee.
posted by flabdablet at 6:56 PM on March 15, 2019