Activation Problems

Fix Office 2021 Showing Home and Student After Installing Professional Plus

Algirdas Jasaitis Sep 28, 2026 869 views

Question details

The user cannot activate Office Professional Plus 2021 because the application continues to identify itself as the Home and Student edition.

How to Fix Office 2021 Showing Home and Student After Installing Professional Plus

Product: Microsoft Office 2021
Device & OS: not provided
Scenario: Attempting to activate a newly installed Office Professional Plus 2021 license on a system that previously ran Home and Student.
Observed behavior: The Office application interface shows Home and Student 2021, despite Professional Plus 2021 appearing in the Control Panel, which prevents the new license key from activating.

Before you start

Ensure you have your valid Microsoft Office Professional Plus 2021 product key accessible and save all open documents before beginning the uninstallation process.

Solution 1Recommended

Manually Uninstall Office and Remove Old Product Keys

Use the manual uninstallation method and the OSPP script to completely clear out residual Home and Student license keys before reinstalling Professional Plus.

A standard uninstallation from the Control Panel often leaves behind residual registry entries and license files. When you install Professional Plus, it detects the leftover Home and Student license and defaults to it.

To resolve this, you must completely strip the old license using the Office Software Protection Platform script (ospp.vbs) built into Windows.

Uninstall existing Office versions

Open the Control Panel, navigate to 'Programs and Features', select Microsoft Office, and click 'Uninstall'. Follow Microsoft's official manual uninstall guide to remove all related folders in Program Files and AppData.

Open Command Prompt as Administrator

Click the Start menu, type 'cmd', right-click 'Command Prompt', and select 'Run as administrator'.

Check existing license statuses

Type the command 'cscript "%ProgramFiles%\Microsoft Office\Office16\ospp.vbs" /dstatus' and press Enter. Locate the 'Last 5 characters of installed product key' for the Home and Student edition.

Remove the old product key

Type 'cscript "%ProgramFiles%\Microsoft Office\Office16\ospp.vbs" /unpkey:XXXXX' (replacing XXXXX with the 5 characters you found) and press Enter. Repeat if multiple old keys are found.

Restart and Reinstall

Restart your computer. Download the Office Professional Plus 2021 installer, run it, and enter your new product key when prompted.

Manually Uninstall Office and Remove Old Product Keys

32-bit vs 64-bit Path: If you installed the 32-bit version of Office on a 64-bit Windows OS, the ospp.vbs file will be located in '%ProgramFiles(x86)%\Microsoft Office\Office16' instead.

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Frequently Asked Questions

Why does Office 2021 still show Home and Student after uninstallation?

A standard uninstallation from the Windows Control Panel does not always remove the licensing files and product keys stored deep in your system's registry. The newly installed Professional Plus edition detects these leftover files and automatically activates the older Home and Student license.

What is ospp.vbs and is it safe to use?

OSPP stands for Office Software Protection Platform. It is an official, built-in Visual Basic script provided by Microsoft to help manage, activate, and remove Office volume licenses. It is completely safe to use when following Microsoft's official deployment guidelines.

Can I have Home and Student and Professional Plus installed together?

It is highly discouraged. Installing two different editions of the same Office version (like Office 2021) on the same computer causes core file conflicts, resulting in frequent crashes and the exact activation loop you are experiencing.

Installation & Activation