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Uninstall Microsoft Office 2016 Trial Version


Microsoft Office Trial version often comes pre-loaded on a PC. If you are like me and don’t want that but have other versions of Office you wish to install, you first need to uninstall the trial version. Problem is, sometimes it won’t go away, even after you uninstall it. In my case, I uninstalled Office 365 then installed a stand alone Outlook 2016. That went well and it activated. However, after the computer ran Windows Update, Outlook lost its activation and thought it was part of the whole Office 365 suite. Finally, I got the answer when I called Microsoft. The following is what I had to do… This applies to Office 365 trial, however I expect future versions of office will be similar. (This assumes you have some fundamental understanding of working with Windows, if you don't understand the whole instructions please find some one who does.)

Part One is the whole reason I made this page, I didn't want to forget how I did it.

If you have already uninstalled Office Trial version, and have your preferred version installed already, you may only need to do part one.  Otherwise if you still have the Office Trial version installed, I recommend you do it in this order.  In fact if you uninstall all office products, Part One can't be done, but Office Trial may still not be completely uninstalled. So when you reinstall another Office product, as I did, then you can do this, but it only works with newer versions of office (don't know how new, sorry.)

Part One:

  1. Find the file ospp.vbs
    The default location is (depending on if office is 32 bit or 64 bit):
    C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office16
    OR
    C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Office\Office16
  2. Open up a Command window in administrator mode, and navigate to the folder where the file 'ospp.vbs' is.

Type in the following command:

cscript ospp.vbs /dstatus

You may see a result similar to this:

          C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office16\cscript ospp.vbs /dstatus
Microsoft (R) Windows Script Host Version 5.812
Copyright (C) Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

---Processing--------------------------
---------------------------------------
PRODUCT ID: 00200-70000-00000-AA642
SKU ID: d7279dd0-e175-49fe-a623-8fc2fc00afc4
LICENSE NAME: Office 16, Office16O365HomePremR_Grace edition
LICENSE DESCRIPTION: Office 16, RETAIL(Grace) channel
LICENSE STATUS:  ---NOTIFICATIONS---
ERROR CODE: 0xC004F009
ERROR DESCRIPTION: The Software Licensing Service reported that the grace period expired.
Last 5 characters of installed product key: KHGM9
---------------------------------------
---------------------------------------
---Exiting-----------------------------

---

If you see this:

Error: there is no script engine for file extension ".vbs" at Windows XP startup.

Go to the Error section at the end of this page to fix that error.

---

If there is more than one Office product on your computer you may see more than one Product, make sure you identify correctly the one you wish to get rid of.

Notice that the last 5 characters of the installed Product Key is "KHGM9". That is the last 5 of a trial version. (It may be different on your system.) Notice also that it has expired. If you see more than one product, make sure you do the next step for the version you wish to get rid off.

  1. Type in the following, notice that the end code is the same as the above last 5 of the product key of the product you are eliminating.
    cscript ospp.vbs /unpkey:KHGM9
    The result should be something like this: 

          C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office16\cscript ospp.vbs /unpkey:KHGM9
Microsoft (R) Windows Script Host Version 5.812
Copyright (C) Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

---Processing--------------------------
---------------------------------------
Uninstalling product key for: Office 16, Office16O365HomePremR_Grace edition
‹Product key uninstall successful›
---------------------------------------
---Exiting-----------------------------

Part Two

This is only one way to uninstall Office. There are multiple ways to uninstall it, Part One was the reason I created this page, it was the missing link for me.

  1. Find the uninstall program from Microsoft.com and uninstall Office.  (You could use the built in Windows process to uninstall Office but it is easy to miss something.) 
    In the case it applies to:
    2. (Applies To: Office 2016 Office for business Office 365 Admin Office 365 Small Business Office 365 Small Business Admin Office 365 operated by 21Vianet Office 365 operated by 21Vianet - Small Business Admin Office 365 operated by 21Vianet - Admin Office.com Office 2013 Office 365 Germany - Enterprise Office 365 Germany - Enterprise admin Click2Run)

    1. Go to this link and download the easy fix program (o15-ctrremove.diagcab) on that page:
      http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2809219/en-us.
      If that doesn't work, here is a direct link to the download: https://aka.ms/diag_officeuninstall
    2. Run the program.
      3. It will uninstall Office 2016 programs and perhaps other Office programs.

Additional Information

Deleting the Office Trial first does not rid the computer of the trial licence number. If you don't do the above before you delete the Office trial version, you will not find the file 'ospp.vbs', as it is only found in the folders mentioned above, which are deleted when you uninstall Office. However I found that if I went to another computer that had the Office 16 folder, and copied it to the hard drive of the computer I was working on, this procedure still worked. Delete the Office 16 folder that was copied once the trial licnece was removed from the machine in question.


Error

On one machine I ran into this issue when I tried to run:

cscript ospp.vbs /dstatus

It returned the following error:

Error: there is no script engine for file extension ".vbs" at Windows XP startup.

“wscript.exe” is Windows Script Host which is a default program to open “.vbs” file types.

One of these was the solution, however after I did them all I had to close and reopen the command window before the issue error was fixed. I don't know which one will fix your issue.


Method 1
    Change cscript.exe to wscript.exe execution for all VBScript files:
  1. Type ‘cmd’ in Start, Run box. Right click on cmd in the Program list and then select the option Run as Administrator.
  2. Type the following command, and then press ENTER on the keyboard:
    cscript.exe //H:WScript
  3. Close the command window and start over.

Method 2
    Re-register the vbscript.dll file:
  1. Type ‘cmd’ in the Start, Run box, right-click on Command Prompt, click on Run as Administrator.
  2. Type the following command, and then press ENTER on the keyboard:
    3. Regsvr32 vbscript.dll
  3. Click the OKbutton.
  4. Close the command window and start over.

Method 3
    Reassociate the vbs files with the following command:
  1. Type ‘cmd’ in the Start, Run box, right-click on Command Prompt, click on Run as Administrator.
  2. Type the following command, and then press ENTER on the keyboard:
    3. assoc .vbs=VBSFile
  3. Close the command window and start over.

I got the fix from this page:

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_xp-performance/error-there-is-no-script-engine-for-file-extension/ef023588-0c5c-4d37-a169-20eedb9c5a4c