Open Activity Monitor while validating an Office license on an M2 MacBook. You’ll see a process called Microsoft Office Licensing Helper (Intel) —a 32-bit process running on a 64-bit ARM chip via an emulation layer. That’s like flying a modern jetliner using a steam engine’s control rods. And it all revolves around that little .plist file.
The software may claim activation was successful but revert to "Read-Only" mode immediately. Common Troubleshooting and Repair com.microsoft.office.licensing.plist
If you see uchg or schg in the output, unlock it: Open Activity Monitor while validating an Office license
Because the file is in /Library/Preferences/ , modifying it requires sudo or admin privileges. That’s good—malware can’t easily unlicense your Office. However, it creates a support nightmare for remote workers. And it all revolves around that little
Find com.microsoft.office.licensing.plist . Drag it to the Trash. (Alternatively, rename it to .old or .bak if you are cautious and want to preserve the corrupted file for analysis).