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Office 365 "The fine print" popup message - is it legitimate?

Copper Contributor

Greetings,

 

I have been happily using Office 365 (mostly Word) for many years, and I have never had any problems with any of the products. This morning when I loaded Word I was confronted by a pop-up message called "The fine print" asking me to accept terms of use in order to continue. I have been using Word for several years on this computer and I have never seen anything like this, I just want to confirm that this pop-up message is in fact legitimate and not some form of spyware or adware impersonating Microsoft.

 

Any assistance would be greatly appreciated,

Glenn

 

Here is a screenshot of the pop-up:MSWord-TheFinePrintv2.png

122 Replies

I don't know of a public link to this information. I took it from our Admin center of Office 365. Im not an MS representative. Just a user like you, or more specifically IT admin at organization using Office 365.

Honestly, i doubt you will get official reaponse here. If you need that, file a support ticket and ask them to provide you one. 

 

Office is not always updating on the same day everywhere (sometimes it takes a week or longer), it can be that update was released on July 28, but your client updated later. Mine hasn't updated until i ran update check manually yesterday and got the same popup. That confirmed my theory of faulty update and not malware. 

Oleg, thanks, didn't realize that. 

I thought it better to check here, than to open a support ticket for a known issue.  And, other comments didn't indicate an exceptional experience with support on this topic.  :)

 

The reason I'm being so cautious is that, years ago, my then-new pc got ransomware.  I now use the paid version of Malwarebytes antimalware, but I'm still skeptical about unexpected popup msgs.

 

I see there are other discussion threads related to this one, where folks are telling each other that the popup just indicates that the most recent updates applied, require new 'fine print' for the user to sign.  That's demonstrably incorrect, and your explanation is still the best I've seen.  ty.

 

 

 

OK. I've read through all the messages in this thread. I am among the group that is using Office 2016 Professional Plus NOT office 365. I have two computers, a desktop and a Surface Pro. I am only have problems with my Surface Pro and I have detected differences between the OS build numbers on the two computers.

Desktop - OS Build 17134.191 - works, no problems

Surface Pro 4 - OS Build 17134.165 - I get the "The Fine Print" dialog

.191 works

.165 does not work.

 

I wonder if this is significant.

 

Hi @Loren Balk

 

As @wroot has found earlier on (great find and info Oleg), Microsoft have released an advisory about an issue where an update has moved the EULA for the software to another location (EULA has not been modified) causing the prompt.

 

I suspect when your Windows Update did its thing, it installed said update which cause the issue.

 

While Microsoft is a big company, they are human and don't always get it right. I'm personally inclined to give them the benefit of the doubt on this one as we all make mistakes. I doubt they turn up to work everyday thinking of new and exciting ways to mess with its user base :)

 

And to the question of whether Microsoft will answer us on this issue, @Deleted and the other community managers are working to get something from that department to provide a response. It's a big company, I'm sure they have protocols to follow.

 

At least from the advisory alert that it reads that this pop-up isn't a virus so it isn't Skynet trying to infect the Internet in preparation for Judgement day (always a good thing).

 

Happy Friday to you all! Wishing you a terrific weekend ahead!

 

Cheers

Damien

Office 2016 Pro (non Office 365) is also a CTR version, which is updating on its own from the Office updates servers, same as Office 365 version. I guess they received the same update.

 

I don't think OS version is important here. I have received same popup on Windows 7, which got an Update Rollup this week and a user saw popup on Windows 10, which hasn't had an update recently (we control it via WSUS). Unless this was done with the regular July updates. But i doubt Windows update could change the place of Office EULA agreement storage. To test that you can manually run check for updates in Office and make sure versions are the same (File > Account).

 

It might be that some of your clients haven't received the update yet. When update is released Office can wait for a week or so before pulling it and installing (there is probably some random delay and it also waits for the user not to use his/her PC actively).

best response confirmed by VI_Migration (Silver Contributor)

Considering that it took almost a week to get this response,  with the exception of one person who seems to relish opportunities like this to subject everyone to his humor and opinions (maybe wanting a job with microsoft ?) I'm not sure how you expected or felt everyone was patient ! 

Anyway, thank you Eric for finally providing an answer.

They may have pulled it back but seems like they maybe have pushed it out again. - the popup just started again... grrrr

The advisory on this in admin center was never removed, just wording slightly changed. So i guess they are still "working" on it or this can still be an issue. Maybe they are waiting for a regular update window to push a fix through (08.14 was a day of usual security fixes).

This time the culprit appears to update for windows 10 KB4023057 2.47.0.0.  (it slipped in 3 days age).  I rolled back to the system restore point prior to that patch and the fine print popup disappeared.  I did have to to reinstall a firefox and  antivirus update.

 

Why MS is so determined to needlessly annoy the heck out of users?  

 

While the popup is gone, MS still has managed to insert a worm into up my desktop Office install - in the upper left hand corner of MS office programs my name appears with a yellow triangle - "ACCOUNT ERROR.  Sorry we can't get to your account right now. To fix this, please sign in again."  WTF, I'm not using 365, I don't want to use 365 (or even one drive for that matter).  I don't want to create profile, add a picture...and I don't want my stuff 'in the cloud!'  My MS online accounts are irrelevant to my using my desktop PC.  I don't want to have to be or even expected to be connected to the internet for my desktop to function. 

 

I have a local install of Office 2016 Pro  (just like a number of other folks who posted here last month.)  I did that because when the fine print popup started this was the place where it was being discussed.  So to be clear, this impacts local installs of Office. 

 

It almost looks like MS is laying the ground work to force users to 365 - and I am not interested.  (The paranoid in me can't help but wonder if MS cooperating with the feds to get data into the cloud to make illegal spying on everyone a bit easier.) 

 

So  I've downloaded LibreOffice 6 so I can test my more complex spreadsheets, it been 6 years or so since I last tried it - at that time there enough quirks in calc (formulas with functions) that it was a no go...  I really resent having to spend my time to recover from MS screwups.

Hi John, 

 

I fell exactly the way you do, but we never went back to using Office 2016 after the initial SNAFU.  Our users are more than happy with LibreOffice.

Solved, my first option or angle of attack was to disable the Office Updates, the second Randy helped me out with though I would've assumed the same same 2nd process, which was to run Office Repair after disabling the Office Updates so it could overwrite any changed files with the originals. This should get rid of those 365 popups in previous versions of Office.

Solved, my first option or angle of attack was to disable the Office Updates, the second Randy helped me out with though I would've assumed the same same 2nd process, which was to run Office Repair after disabling the Office Updates so it could overwrite any changed files with the originals. This should get rid of those 365 popups in previous versions of Office.


@Loren Balk wrote:

OK. I've read through all the messages in this thread. I am among the group that is using Office 2016 Professional Plus NOT office 365. I have two computers, a desktop and a Surface Pro. I am only have problems with my Surface Pro and I have detected differences between the OS build numbers on the two computers.

Desktop - OS Build 17134.191 - works, no problems

Surface Pro 4 - OS Build 17134.165 - I get the "The Fine Print" dialog

.191 works

.165 does not work.

 

I wonder if this is significant.

 


 

Solved, my first option or angle of attack was to disable the Office Updates, the second Randy helped me out with though I would've assumed the same same 2nd process, which was to run Office Repair after disabling the Office Updates so it could overwrite any changed files with the originals. This should get rid of those 365 popups in previous versions of Office.

This is still happening every time I open an office app, on Windows 10.

 

For a paid service product it is strange to me that you guys are not fixing tiny bugs like this ASAP.

 

It makes Microsoft look incompetent and extremely slow in the way it handles legitimate user issues, these are paying customers.

 

Does the office team need restructuring?

I have just scrolled through dozens of threads in Office 365 forum and i haven't seen other reports. Your comment here is also after 4 months after the last response. So it seems like an isolated issue that happens to you. Are you sure automatic updates are enabled in your Office? Go to File > Account and check if Automatic updates are on there and also tell what version of Office is shown there.

Microsoft Office 365 ProPlus is my subscription.

 

I am on the latest version when I check for updates.

When I press show additional licensing information it tells me Office couldn't verify the subscription (Even though I just verified it when opening up word, again).

The email it shows the product belonging to is an old email address to a business I used to work for.

Belongs to: Email is ok
Under additional Licensing information - Belongs to: Wrong email

Can you make screenshots of both Account page and additional licensing information windows (cover your emails) and post here?

So, originally you have installed this Office while you were working at that company and you used your work email to activate it? But you have left the company? I guess they have terminated your user/license and that's why you can't activate it and the fine print read popup is caused by this. Businesses can't transfer you their license.

Hi Oleg,

 

Correct, I have however paid for this subscription myself on my personal MS account, this was done after we parted ways.

 

The email address in the red box is spelling my old work email, while the other email fields are correct.

 

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