Got an 8 inch Windows tablet and wondering where your Microsoft Office 2013 is?

I recently pickup up a Toshiba Encore 8 to test Windows 8.1 on 8 inch tablets which ships with Windows 8.1 and Office 2013 Home and Student Edition. I starting testing the tablet and when I came to try Office I noticed that the shortcuts were missing. The apps like Word and Excel were not in the app list in Windows but there was a Microsoft Office app listed so I tapped the icon and then I was presented with a dialog asking for me to buy Office, Activate or Try Office 365.

The options in the dialog box are Buy, Activate or Try. Buy takes you off to Microsoft.com where you can buy from many of the versions of Office 2013, Activate asked for a product key and trial takes you off to get an Office 365 trial. In with the packaging of the tablet along with a quick start guide there is a Windows 8.1 licence sheet but no Microsoft Office licence key and I am sure many people would have been pretty confused by now and may have even gone for a trial version but I knew Office was including so I tried entering the Windows licence key supplied and that worked.

Once I entered the key Office completed the setup and the apps are now listed in the app list.

It would be a much better user experience if the key was entered before shipping or at least Toshiba should make it clear in the documentation that its a combined key. I am not sure everybody would figure out to enter a Windows product key to get Office working. Hopefully this guide will help someone searching for the solution.