Bitdefender blocking Office 365 licensing and activation

Product: Bitdefender Total Security | Build 27.0.58.324

OS: Windows 11 Enterprise 64-bit, version 26H1 | Build 28000.1836

Office: 365 Business Premium

I've had a lot of issues with Microsoft Office 365 not activating and coming up with an account error. After too much troubleshooting and tweaking settings, I've confirmed that Bitdefender is blocking Office activation.

MS Teams and OneDrive connect and activate fine; it is just the Office 365 suite of products (Outlook, Word, Excel, etc). I am able to activate Office prior to installing Bitdefender, but once I install Bitdefender, I receive an "Account Error" in Office products, which results in Office losing the license (and most features). The Office errors include codes such as "No network detected [Error 2604]" and "Error Something went wrong. [9bxf9]"

If I uninstall Bitdefender, Office products will reconnect and reactivate without intervention.

There are NO notifications that Bitdefender is blocking any traffic or applications.

For Bitdefender, I have tried:

Setting the Ethernet to Dynamic and Home/Office
Setting Profiles to off, work, etc
Setting the Firewall to Alert Mode with Stealth Mode off (no alert when trying to activate office)
Adding all Office apps to allowed list on the firewall
Adding the following URLs to the exception list:
- officecdn.microsoft.com
- ols.officeapps.live.com/olsc
- activation.sls.microsoft.com
- odc.officeapps.live.com
- crl.microsoft.com/pki/crl/products/*
- www.microsoft.com/pki/crl/products/*
- go.microsoft.com
- login.windows.net
- login.microsoft.com
- login.microsoftonline.com

This has cost me weeks of productivity (including all the Office 365 troubleshooting I initially did).

I've spent some time attempting to find detailed Firewall logs but have been unsuccessful.

Any and all assistance greatly appreciated. At this stage, I can see no option other than removing Bitdefender.

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All comments

Kittipatt P

I've same problem. Now I tried to disable advanced threat. Its work

Alexandru_BD

Hi,

Try this:

https://www.bitdefender.com/consumer/support/answer/2393/

Let us know if it worked.

Kittipatt P

I tried to except winword.exe excel.exe … not work.

Now I tried to disable exploit detection. Its work

Alexandru_BD

Ok so basically if you turn this option off, you can activate Office 365 and use it, and if you turn exploit detection on afterwards, everything works well?

Regards

Khav

Hi Alexandru,

Thank you for your suggestion

Unfortunately, no, it doesn't work. I followed that article previously while troubleshooting, and as per my original post, I added the exe's to the exception lists for antivirus/advanced threat defence and the URLs for office.

I have also performed completely fresh installs of Windows (full format/wipe) with the build as above, fully updated. Installing Office first works, installing Bitdefender breaks Office activation (it deactivates the product and Office enters the timed period to feature deactivation). Only removing Bitdefender enables Office to reactivate, restoring full Office functionality immediately (even without a reboot - I've tried both).

A fresh Windows install, followed by Bitdefender then Office, allows Office to install but not activate. The only way to activate Office is to remove Bitdefender.

None of the exceptions have worked. I haven't tried @Kittipatt's (Thank you for the info, Kittipat!) workaround of disabling ATD, as I've currently removed Bitdefender as I need to use Office for work, and disabling ATD defeats the purpose of paying for Bitdefender in the first place.

I also looked at adding application exceptions (How to allow an app or program through Bitdefender Firewall) but adding protocols and IP addresses for every Office app for every URL listed above is neither reasonable nor desirable.

I have managed to activate Office with Bitdefender using Windows 11 Enterprise 64-bit 23H2, Build 22631.6936, Windows Smart App Control Off. No exceptions were needed for this build.

So:

Works: Windows 11 Enterprise 64-bit, version 23H2, Build 22631.6936, Windows Smart App Control Off

Breaks: Windows 11 Enterprise 64-bit, version 26H1, Build 28000.1836, Windows Smart App Control On

And as per Kittipat: ATD or Exploit protection On breaks Office, Off it works.

Please let me know if you need any more information,

Thanks again.

Kittipatt P

Yes, Its work. but when i turn on after office account will return ! at account

Alexandru_BD

@Khav may I kindly ask you to contact the Bitdefender Support teams using the link below? They saw this thread and want to investigate further and help you out:

https://www.bitdefender.com/consumer/support/help/

State your contact reason, choose request category, then select from the available contact channels, chat, phone and email/ticket. Chat would be the fastest way to reach them.

Let us know how it goes.

Thanks!