Can I still activate Word 2011, or do I need to?

I have a very good and perfectly boxed original copy of Office 2011 that I use regularly (all I use is word) but after installing a new hard drive I reloaded it and must activate it again. I know support has ended so do I still need to activate it?
It won't let me do it online so I tried phoning, and to be honest I could not understand one word the guy on the other end of the phone said - his accent was just unintelligible. I'll try again, I've still got 9 days to do it, but firstly can I still actually activate it, or is that finished too? What happens if I don't? And secondly, I trust I'll have to talk to someone on the phone again? All help and advice welcome, and before you ask, I have different versions of Word on my laptop, and on my Apple Mac, but really use this computer so need it there too.

I found this as a potential fix at another website-

"The catch is with two step verification of MS account. I disabled my two step verification in the MS account, changed my password, used the new password in the activation page and voila,"

Why bother? LibreOffice is so much more flexible, constantly updated and cross platform compatible and free.

BlueGuy said:

Why bother? LibreOffice is so much more flexible, constantly updated and cross platform compatible and free.

Well, firstly because I have two copies of Word 2011 that I paid money for... :)
Secondly because my agents require submissions in Word and in a Word-specific format.
However I'm just off the phone with Microsoft Activation, spent fifteen minutes supplying e-mails and code numbers, only to be told: "Sorry, we can't help you. Bye."
They won't be getting any more money from me in the future, so it looks like LibreOffice might have to do - so long as it works.

I guess the instructions in the link I provided didn't help. Kind of strange, I had to reinstall Office 2007 a year ago and as far as I know, it's activated.

BlueGuy said:

Why bother? LibreOffice is so much more flexible, constantly updated and cross platform compatible and free.

Update: just tried Libre Office; it opened the document ok but when I went to save it (a 70,000 word manuscript) it told me that saving as a 2007-2019 Word document might not save all of the changes and amendments, and recommended saving as an ODF. That did worry me slightly.

Triumphdriver said:

Update: just tried Libre Office; it opened the document ok but when I went to save it (a 70,000 word manuscript) it told me that saving as a 2007-2019 Word document might not save all of the changes and amendments, and recommended saving as an ODF. That did worry me slightly.

ODF/.odt is their propriety format, but it can save and import in MS .docx format as well.
Were you presented with a dialogue allowing a choice of formats? I get that when I save.
In the configuration, you can also set a default. I use the portable version from John Haller.
AKA PortableApps.com .

Just the two suggested formats, with ODF being their preferred option. I had to manually switch to the word option then got the warning that it may not save all of the changes in the correct format.

Triumphdriver said:

Just the two suggested formats, with ODF being their preferred option. I had to manually switch to the word option then got the warning that it may not save all of the changes in the correct format.

I should have been clearer, I meant when I use 'save as' from the drop down menu, then it offers a variety of formats. Like both the .docx and the older .doc .


The dialogue box should have "save as type" in the 2nd work line.

Thank you - that has reassured me quite a bit! nothing worse than having something you've worked on for a year, maybe 140,000 words, and you save it to another program (like Mac Pages) and all of the spacing is wrong...