Having been through this myself, the steps are generally:
- Set the service to log on as a different account that should have permissions, e.g.
Local System Account
as a test.
If the above succeeds, permissions are probably wrong in various locations:
- Registry key
HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\OfficeSoftwareProtectionPlatform
- Folder
%ProgramFiles%\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\OfficeSoftwareProtectionPlatform
- Folder
%AllUsersProfile%\Microsoft\OfficeSoftwareProtectionPlatform
.
Troubleshooting steps generally say to give the account in question (NETWORK SERVICE
) "Full" permissions at these locations. I don't know if this is overkill.
Then of course change the service back to logging on with NETWORK SERVICE as it was originally (clear the password field).
- If step #1 didn't work... well in my case it was anti-malware software interfering! After closing Malwarebytes software it worked immediately.