So today I signed up for Office 365, since it seemed to be the easiest way to get hold of Office; although I have a license and subscription, I also have more machines.

To say I was frustrated when I tried to activate Office 365 was an understatement. Each time I went through the process, it would reject the password saying there was a problem with my account.

I could login with my email and password online, but through the activation, no dice. Some internet searches, including with the ludicrously bad Windows support search didn’t elicit anything useful.

Then it hit me. Office 2011 for Mac through an Office 365 subscription probably doesn’t know about secondary authentication.

Sure enough, I created and application specific password, logged in with that, and yay, I now have a running Office 365 subscription.

If you are experiencing the same problem, using a application specific password might just help you out.