Install Microsoft Office 2021 using the Office Deployment Tool

Learn the new process for obtaining Microsoft Office products

From Office 2019 onward, Microsoft changed the way Volume Licensing customers can download and install all Office suites and individual applications, including Visio and Project. Unlike previous editions of Office that were obtained through Volume Licensing, Office 2021 and 2019 products can't be downloaded directly through the Volume Licensing Service Center (VLSC).

If you've already requested an Office product through TechSoup and received an email notifying you that your license agreement is ready, you can use these instructions to obtain your product.

Follow the instructions for the operating system you'll be using.

• Windows
• macOS

Windows Download and Installation Instructions for Office 2021

Beginning with Office 2019, all Office products for Windows that are available through Volume Licensing use Click-to-Run technology instead of the traditional Windows Installer technology. To deploy volume licensed versions of Office products for users in your organization, you'll use the Office Deployment Tool (ODT).

You'll need a broadband Internet connection with download speeds of at least 20 Mbps to download Office products. Note that Office 2019 and 2021 products require Windows 10 and will not run on older versions of Windows.

Step One: Register at the VLSC and Accept Your Software Agreement (Products with Software Assurance Only)

If you requested discounted Microsoft products with Software Assurance, you'll need to register at the VLSC and accept your software license agreement before continuing. To do this, complete steps one and two in our quick-start guide.

If you requested donated products or discounted products without Software Assurance, skip to the next step.

Step Two: Get Your Office Product Key

For discounted Microsoft products with Software Assurance, you'll get your key from the VLSC. For donated products or discounted products without Software Assurance, you'll get your key from the Microsoft 365 admin center. Follow the instructions that apply for the products you requested.

VLSC Instructions (Products with Software Assurance)

1. Sign in to the VLSC.
2. Select the Downloads and Keys tab.
3. Find your Office product in the list and click its Key link.
4. In the table beneath the name of the product, find your product key in the column labeled Key. The Type column for this key should say MAK, not KMS.
   • Office suites have separate setup keys for online functionality like web apps. These keys are not the same as the MAK product keys and cannot be used for volume activation of desktop products.
     
5. Copy the product's individual key from this table and paste it into a program like Notepad or click Export all keys: CSV just above the list of products to download a list of keys in comma-separated-values format (which can be opened with Excel). This list contains all Volume License keys associated with agreements in your VLSC profile.

Microsoft 365 Admin Center Instructions (Products with No Software Assurance)

1. Go to the Microsoft 365 admin center and sign in with the Microsoft for Nonprofits account you created: https://admin.microsoft.com/.
2. Choose Billing > Your Products in the left navigation menu.
3. A list of products available for you to download appears under the Software heading. Click the product you requested.
4. On the download page for the product you selected, use the dropdown menus to select the appropriate Product version, Language, and CPU & file type. Then, click Show activation keys (next to the Download button) to reveal your key.
5. Click Copy key to clipboard and paste the key into a blank text document. Save the document somewhere you can access later.

Step Three: Download the Office Deployment Tool (ODT)

1. Download the Office Deployment Tool from Microsoft.
2. When the download is finished, open it, check the box to accept the Microsoft license terms, and click Continue.
3. You will be asked to choose a folder to store the extracted setup files. Navigate to the root level of your computer's hard drive (C:) and click Make New Folder. Then, name the folder "OfficeSetup" and continue with the extraction process. Note that these instructions won't work if you choose a different folder name or location.

4. When you are finished, your new "OfficeSetup" folder should have a file named "setup" and some sample "configuration" files. Delete the configuration files. You only need to keep the setup file.

Step Four: Download and Prepare the Configuration Files

Download the configuration file that you need from the table below by right-clicking the link for the file you need, selecting Save link as…, and saving the file to the "OfficeSetup" folder you created. Don't download more than one of these files to that folder at a time. If you need to install more than one type of Office product, you'll have the opportunity to do so later.

Learn how to tell if you need the 32-bit or 64-bit version.

Next, follow the instructions below to add the product key that you obtained in step two to the configuration file.

1. Right-click the configuration file and select Edit to open the file in Notepad.
2. Look for the following string of text in the configuration file:

• PIDKEY="#####-#####-#####-#####-#####"
  
  

3. In this string, replace #####-#####-#####-#####-##### with your MAK client activation key by copying and pasting the key from wherever you saved it. You should leave the quotation marks before and after the key.
4. Save the file and close it.
5. Then, right-click the configuration file, select Rename, and change the filename to be "configuration".
   • If the configuration file you downloaded has a name that ends with ".xml", that means your installation of Windows has been set to display file extensions. If this is the case, make sure to keep ".xml" in your filename by renaming it as "configuration.xml" instead of "configuration".

If you requested more than one type of Office product, you'll need to edit the configuration file and add a different key for each product that you received a license for.

If you need additional customization for your deployment and have IT experience, you can use Microsoft's Office Customization Tool to create your own configuration files.

Step Five: Download and Install Your Products

Note that all earlier versions of Office will be uninstalled when you install Office, so be sure to save and quit any Office applications that are running.

1. Navigate to your "OfficeSetup" folder in File Explorer.
2. You'll need to perform the next steps using the Command Prompt, which is a text-based command-line interface that runs within Windows.
   To open the Command Prompt

• Click the address bar in the File Explorer window that you opened.
  
• With the address bar selected, type cmd and press Enter.

• Type the following into the Command Prompt that you opened.
  • setup /download configuration.xml
  • Press 'Enter' to run the command

It will look as if nothing is happening, but your product will be downloading in the background:

The download will be a large file and might take a while to finish. Once the download is complete, you will be returned to the Command Prompt:

• When the download has finished, you're ready to install the product. Type the following into the Command Prompt.
  setup /configure configuration.xml
• If you see an error that says you still have previous versions of Office installed on your computer, you'll need to manually uninstall those programs and type the above command again.
• When your installation is complete, you'll be returned to the Command Prompt. Close the Command Prompt and return to the desktop. Your Office 2019 product will be installed and ready to use.
• If you need to install a different Office product, delete the "configuration.xml" file from the "OfficeSetup" folder and follow these instructions again beginning at Step Four: Download and Prepare the Configuration File.

If you need to customize your installation or need more detailed instructions, you can refer to Microsoft's Office deployment guide for IT professionals.

MacOS Download and Installation Instructions for Office 2021

With Office 2019 products for Mac, you can't download the Office installation files directly from the VLSC. Instead, you'll download an activation tool called the Volume License (VL) Serializer from the VLSC and then separately download the Office installation files from Microsoft through the Office Content Delivery Network (CDN).

The instructions for performing all these steps are provided in the VLSC under the Downloads and Keys tab for each Office 2019 product for Mac. We're including those same instructions here with more details for organizations that need more assistance.

Step One: Register at the VLSC and Accept Your Software Agreement (Products with Software Assurance Only)

If you requested discounted Microsoft products with Software Assurance, you'll need to register at the VLSC and accept your software license agreement before continuing. To do this, complete steps one and two in our quick-start guide.

If you requested donated products or discounted products without Software Assurance, skip to the next step.

Step Two: Download and Install the Volume License Serializer

For discounted Microsoft products with Software Assurance, you'll download the Volume License Serializer from the VLSC. For donated products or discounted products without Software Assurance, you'll download the Volume License Serializer from the Microsoft 365 admin center. Follow the instructions that apply for the products you requested.

If you requested more than one kind of Office for Mac product, you'll repeat this process for each product.

We suggest running the Volume License Serializer before you install your Office for Mac products in the next step, but you can also run the serializer afterward if you prefer.

VLSC Instructions (Products with Software Assurance)

The instructions for performing all these steps are provided in the VLSC under the Downloads and Keys tab for each Office for Mac product. We're including those same instructions here with more details for organizations that need more assistance.

1. Sign in to the VLSC.
2. Select the Downloads and Keys tab.
3. Find your Office for Mac product in the list and click its Download link.
4. Change the Download Method to Web Browser instead of Download Manager and click the Continue button at the bottom of the window.
5. Click the download icon (circle with a downward arrow) to download the Volume License Serializer .iso file.
6. Once the download is complete, open the .iso file to extract the Volume License Serializer package file.
7. Run the Volume License Serializer package file on each computer that you'll be installing the Office for Mac product on.

Microsoft 365 Admin Center Instructions (Products with No Software Assurance)

1. Go to the Microsoft 365 admin center and sign in with the Microsoft for Nonprofits account you created: https://admin.microsoft.com/.
2. Choose Billing > Your Products in the left navigation menu.
3. A list of products available for you to download appears under the Software heading. Click the Office for Mac product you requested.
4. On the download page for the product you selected, use the dropdown menus to select the appropriate Product version, Language, and CPU & file type. Then, click Download to download the Volume License Serializer .iso file
5. Once the download is complete, open the .iso file to extract the Volume License Serializer package file.
6. Run the Volume License Serializer package file on each computer that you'll be installing the Office for Mac product on.

Step Three: Download and Install Your Products

Use Microsoft's download links to obtain the installation packages for the Office suite and individual applications you requested.

• Most current installation packages for Office for Mac

For the Office for Mac suite, you can choose whether you want the download to include Microsoft Teams (Microsoft's communications platform) or not. After you've downloaded the installation package, open it and follow the instructions to install your product.

If you need to customize your installation or need more detailed instructions, you can refer to Microsoft's Office for Mac deployment guide for IT professionals

*** If you get errors downloading the software or can't activate or need to uninstall Office, you can download the Microsoft Support and Recovery Assistant. 

The Microsoft Support and Recovery Assistant works by running tests to figure out what's wrong and offers the best solution for the identified problem. It can currently fix Office, Microsoft 365, or Outlook problems. If the Microsoft Support and Recovery Assistant can't fix a problem for you, it will suggest next steps and help you get in touch with Microsoft support.

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/about-the-microsoft-support-and-recovery-assistant-e90bb691-c2a7-4697-a94f-88836856c72f