Extend Office 2010's Grace Period to 180 Days with 'Rearm' Trick

Posted 05/17/2010 at 6:18am | by Paul Lilly

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Forget about that paltry 30-day window you have to activate your copy of Office 2010, because if you want to, you can extend the trial for up to six months, Microsoft recently confirmed on its TechNet site. Here's how you do it:

1. Make sure all office 2010 applications are closed
2. Open an elevated command prompt (Click Start, type CMD, right-click cmd.exe and select Run as administrator)
3. Go to %installdir%\%Program Files%\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\OfficeSoftwareProtectionPlatform. If you installed the 32-bit edition of Office 2010 on a 64-bit operating system, %Program Files% is the Program Files (x86) folder.
4. Run ospprearm.exe.

The above rearm trick can be used up to five times, and if used at the tail-end of each 30-day grace period, you can run Office 2010 for up to 180 days without inputting an activation key. The rearm feature is primarily aimed at enterprise admins using a single copy or image to deploy a supported OS and accompanying software on hundreds of PCs, but anyone can use the trick.

As an alternative to the above steps, IntoWindows.com has made available a handy Office 2010 Trial Extender Tool that does the same thing with the click of a button. You can download the tool here.