OneNote Not Working – Fix

Another computer problem on a Microsoft windows operating system with a Microsoft product. This time an individual could not open up Microsoft OneNote. Microsoft OneNote is actually included for free as part of an Office 365 subscription.

Here is this initial request from a third party website where I earn supplemental income answering computer and technology related questions.

“My one note will not open. As I try to open it sometime I get a message that try a reset. I tried the reset but nothing happened.”

Here is my initial response:

You can restart your computer if you have not done so. Please post any exact error messages you are receiving. Also, you can try to perform a repair on Microsoft Office.

Browse to “Add or remove programs”. Select your version of Microsoft Office by clicking on it. Look for “Repair”.

Choose “Repair” if it is available. Another thing you can try is to use a PC optimization tool. Run both cleaner and registry scans.

If Microsoft OneNote still will not open, there are some system scans you can perform. I can provide more detailed instructions. This individual requested that I remotely connect into their computer and fix this issue.

The first time I tried to open up Microsoft OneNote, I received an expired license error. I attempted to verify if indeed the Microsoft office 365 subscription was active. However, Microsoft Corporation loves to make simple tasks overly complicated.

You have to login to your Office 365 subscription to verify whether or not it is indeed active. However, I was able to verify this subscription via the command line. You want to open up a command prompt with administrator rights.

Then you want to browse to the Microsoft Office location. For example browse to this location:

C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\

This individual either had multiple versions of Microsoft Office installed or they had been upgrading from previous versions. You want to make sure you browse to the correct folder where the version of Microsoft office you are trying to verify the subscription for. I had to browse to a folder titled office16.

C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\office16

Now once I was in the correct folder location I typed the following command:

cscript ospp.vbs /dstatus

This script verified that indeed Microsoft Office 2016 365 subscription was active. This told me that that license not activated error was a false positive. Now I will cut to the chase and tell you what fixed this OneNote not working problem.

Performing a repair on Microsoft Office 2016 is what fixed this problem. You want to browse to “Add or remove programs”. Scroll down until you see Microsoft Office 2016 or Office 365.

Select Microsoft Office by clicking on this entry. Now you should see a “Modify” button. Click on modify and you will be presented with two choices.

“Quick Repair” or “Online Repair” are those two choices. I recommend trying “Quick Repair” first. A quick repair of Microsoft Office 365 2016 is what fixed this Microsoft OneNote not working problem.

An “Online Repair” needs an active Internet connection and takes quite a bit longer to complete. However, if quick repair does NOT fix this issue, then by all means choose the online repair option. These instructions were written for a computer with Microsoft Windows 10 operating system installed.

You can certainly use this information as a basis to troubleshoot this problem on other Microsoft operating systems.

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