He opened the Volume Activation Tools. He needed to install the —a specific key from Microsoft's Volume Licensing Service Center. The problem: Dave had the VLSC password. And Dave was on his boat, unreachable until Monday.
Six months ago, Alex had migrated the company from Office 2016 (perpetual, KMS-friendly) to Microsoft 365 Apps for enterprise (subscription-based, designed for cloud activation). He'd assumed the old KMS server would just handle the new clients. It did not. Office 365 Kms Activation
(his laptop). Then 4/25 . Then 12/25 . Other users, still online, were automatically reactivating as their Office clients performed their next background check-in. He opened the Volume Activation Tools
It was 5 PM on a Friday.