Microsoft Office 2010 on Ubuntu 17.10 - Wine - Connection error, activation problem

Question

I installed Microsoft Office 2010 using the method which has been explained in this link:

https://www.dizwell.com/wordpress/technical-articles/linux/install-office-2010-on-ubuntu-16-04/

I got the following error message when I tried to activate Microsoft Office 2010 by the Internet.

A Communication Error has Occured. Please verify that you have connectivity
to the internet and try again (0x80072F0D) 

How can I get around this problem?

Solution

I cannot answer your exact question as posed, but I can explain how to get Microsoft Office 2010 working on Ubuntu 17.10, which sounds like what you are after.

(I don’t have the required reputation to add a comment, which I would have done to check whether this answer is of interest to you.)

Step 1: Install PlayOnLinux

sudo apt-get install playonlinux

Step 2: Use PlayOnLinux to install Microsoft Office 2010

• open PlayOnLinux
• click Install a program
• find and select Microsoft Office 2010
• follow the instructions to install the components you want

Step 3: Install Wine version 2.22 (x86) into PlayOnLinux

• on the PlayOnLinux main window, go to Tools, Manage Wine versions
• under the Wine versions (x86) tab, select 2.22 and click > to move it from Available Wine versions to Installed Wine versions (i.e. to install it)
• close that window

Step 4: Change the Microsoft Office 2010 install to Wine 2.22

• select the Microsoft Word 2010 icon
• click on Configure in the left pane
• change the Wine version to 2.22

Step 5: Enter the product key

• go to the Wine tab, click Control Panel
• double click Add/Remove Programs
• select Microsoft Office Professional (or whatever you have) 2010, click Modify
• select Enter a Product Key
• enter your key, click Continue
• click customise
• ensure that the components you want are selected (because it resets the component list at this point), click continue
• click Close and Yes (to reboot) when asked
• close the configuration window

The product key should be retained. Open one of the components (e.g. Microsoft Word), go to File, Help; it should say Product Activated on the right hand pane.

Comments

[JayDin]

Thanks - that did the trick for me. I still needed to activate Microsoft Office 2010 by the Internet on first run, but now the activation goes though without any problems.

[Premek Brada]

Worked as described, excellent. I struggled at first, the Office configuration program kept crashing at end of the product key setup and starting again on next Office program start, but found out it probably was due to Wine being switched to emulate Windows 7 -- changing back to WinXP resolved the issue.