We all know that product activation is mandatory for most paid software you use in Windows. The same thing is applicable to the Office productivity suite; Microsoft Office as well. Without the activation, the software is no use, and you can’t use any feature at all. However, while trying to activate Office, we came around the issue of “Active Content Removed” pop-up. This pop-up dialog has Enter a product key link as well followed by greyed out Next button.

Since the issue includes Active Content term, it gives us an indication that it has something in relation to Active Content feature inside Internet Explorer. So if you too are facing this problem, you can follow this solution to get rid of this issue:

Active Content Removed error while activating Office

1. Press Windows Key + R combination, type put Regedt32.exe in Run dialog box and hit Enter to open the Registry Editor.

2. Navigate to the following location:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main\FeatureControl\FEATURE_LOCALMACHINE_LOCKDOWN

3. In the right pane of this location, look for the registry DWORD (REG_DWORD) named iexplore.exe. It must be having its Value data set to 1. You have double click on this same DWORD to modify its Value data, you’ll get this:

4. In the above-shown box, replace the Value data from 1 to 0. Click OK. Now you may close the Registry Editor.

Finally, restart the Internet Explorer and retry to activate Office.

You should be able to activate it now.