Microsoft Office
All employees of JLU have access to the Microsoft Office Suite as part of a Microsoft 365 Campus license. Additionally, students at JLU may use Office on their private devices for free. However, other groups of people, such as guest lecturers as well as emeriti, are not eligible to use these licenses.
To use Microsoft 365, a personal Microsoft account is required. The IT service center (HRZ) has created a guide on how to set up and use such an account in compliance with data protection regulations. You can find the guide here on the IT service center's website . Please note that it may take up to an hour after setting up an account until Office 365 can be activated.
Under certain conditions, a local copy of Office 2024 Professional Plus (not Standard) can also be installed on work computers. It is important to note that only employees of JLU may use this "downgrade", and Office 2024 may only be installed on a single personally used work computer. Students do not have the right to a local copy of Office 2024, and guest lecturers or emeriti are also excluded from using it.
Furthermore, Office 2024 Professional Plus can be installed on PCs in freely accessible areas as part of the campus agreement. This includes laboratories, libraries, and pool rooms.
For usage scenarios not covered by the campus agreement, individual Office licenses can still be purchased through AskNet in JustOS.
If you are unsure which installation type applies to you, the it service center (helpdesk: 13100) or the IT workgroup of faculty 09 (it@fb09.uni-giessen.de) can assist you.
For more information about the Microsoft 365 Campus license at JLU, please check the IT service center's website .
Important Notice
Before installing Office 365, you should inform yourself about the conditions of our campus license. If you have any questions, please contact us at it@fb09.uni-giessen.de.
The HRZ has created an installation package for Office 365 that includes the programs Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, and Access. We recommend using this package for installation, which requires local administrator rights. You can download the installation package for Windows PCs as a ZIP file here .
After downloading, you need to extract the file. To do this, right-click on the file ms365.zip in the Explorer and select "Extract All...". In the dialog box that opens, you can choose a destination folder and click the "Extract" button to extract the files. If you leave the checkmark at "Show extracted files," the folder with the installation files will open afterward.
Double-click on install.cmd to start the installation process. If a message "This computer is protected by Windows" appears, please click on "More Info" and "Run anyway". The necessary files will then be downloaded and installed. If there are older Office installations on the PC, they will be uninstalled first. Your data and settings will remain intact.
To activate your Office package, start, for example, Word after the installation is complete. A window will open prompting you to sign in with your Microsoft account. Use the account you created as described here . During activation, a query "Allow my organization to manage my device" will appear. Please remove the checkmark. Your Office suite should then be activated and ready for use.
You can also find a detailed guide including screenshots on the HRZ website .
If you do not want to use the HRZ installation package for Windows or need Office for your Mac, you can download and install the software directly from Microsoft. Log in to the Microsoft Portal at https://office.com with your Microsoft account " username@uni-giessen.de ". You will find an "Install Office" button in the top right corner.
Support for older Office versions such as Office 2016 and 2019 was discontinued by Microsoft in October 2025. This means that these versions will no longer receive security updates and may not be used at JLU. As an alternative, Office 365 is available as part of the Microsoft 365 Campus license.