Office 2013 won’t activate due to network related error
Office 2013/2016 fails to activate on a fresh build. We notice that “No Network Connection” is present on the adapter, running Windows 7 x64bit. The client has two adapters connected, one Ethernet, and the other is Wireless. Both say there is no “Internet Connection” when one clearly exists.
(If you notice that your inside network is set to Public Network, then click it and change to Work or Home)
The specific error on opening Office is “We are unable to connect right now. Please check your network, and try again later”. There is an offering to “Enter a product key instead”, but that won’t apply to Office 365.
One recommended fix item was a registry key pointed out for Active Probing, but it did not work.
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\NlaSvc\Parameters\Internet\Active Probing (1)
We’ve also seen fixes that involved two keys which could be corrupt, or previously configured to block internet sign-in, but that wasn’t it:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\15.0\Common\Internet\UseOnlineContent HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\15.0\Common\SignIn\SignInOptions
After reviewing sources pointing to various Windows fixes, we had success with general network clean up commands. Here’s the script used to clean the box, and the network connection in the system tray was working right away. It’s likely one of these commands that’s doing the fixing, but for the purpose of revealing the entire fix, I’ve included all of it:
@echo off echo %time%: Beginning network repair process. :: BEGIN Callout A echo %time%: Releasing DHCP lease(s)... ipconfig /release > NUL :: END Callout A echo %time%: Renewing DHCP lease(s)... ipconfig /renew > NUL echo %time%: Flushing ARP cache... arp -d * > NUL :: BEGIN Callout B echo %time%: Purging NBT remote cache table.... nbtstat -R | find /i "failed" 1>&2 echo %time%: Releasing and refreshing registered NBT names... nbtstat -RR | find /i "failed" 1>&2 :: END Callout B echo %time%: Flushing DNS cache... ipconfig /flushdns > NUL echo %time%: Registering with DNS... ipconfig /registerdns > NUL echo %time%: Network repair process done.
I followed said steps as mentions but din’t help. So, when gone through event logs of the system, I found that this issue having from two services. After enabling these services my issue got disappeared.
1) Dhcp is started in Automatic mode which was turned off previously.
2) WinHttpAutoProxySvc is started in manual mode which was turned off previously.
I’ve been working on a workstation for a few hours, searched up and down for a good fix and tried dozens of office related reg keys and network settings. This was the only one that did the trick. Just for safety, I added a line to shutdown and restart after 60 seconds should I lose connectivity. Since this was a remote workstation, there was a mild paranoia of losing any connection to it and not getting it back. Turned out the batch file was done in less than 30 seconds, and I just used “shutdown /a” to abort it. The net connection is looking good now and office is connecting again. Thanks a ton!