How to Download, Install and Activate Visio, Project and Standalone Office Apps (2016–2024)

Visio, Project and the single Office applications are licensed separately from the Office suite, which is why we sell them as their own products: Visio 2024 Professional, Project 2024 Professional, Access 2024, Excel 2024, Word 2024 and Outlook 2024. Because they are separate products, they have separate installers and a few compatibility rules that catch people out. This guide explains how to get each one installed and activated, alone or next to an existing Office suite, in about fifteen minutes.

Before you start: the compatibility rules

Microsoft’s Click-to-Run technology installs all modern Office products into a shared folder, and it only allows products from compatible generations to coexist.

Already installed	Can add	Cannot add
Office 2024 or Office LTSC 2024	Visio 2024, Project 2024, any 2024 standalone app	Visio or Project 2016/2019
Office 2021 or LTSC 2021	Visio/Project 2021 and 2024, 2021 and 2024 standalone apps	2016 or 2019 versions
Microsoft 365 Apps	Visio/Project 2021 and 2024	2016 or 2019 versions
Office 2019	Visio/Project 2019	2021 or 2024 versions
Office 2016	Visio/Project 2016	2019 or later versions
Nothing	Any standalone app	n/a

Two further rules: the standalone app must match the bitness of the suite (64-bit Office means 64-bit Visio), and Windows 10 or 11 is required for the 2021 and 2024 versions. If you have Office 2016 and want Visio 2024, the clean solution is to move the suite to Office 2024 Professional Plus at the same time, or to run Visio in a virtual machine.

Step 1: download the installer

Your delivery email contains the official Microsoft download link for the product you bought. There are two kinds of link, and both are from Microsoft’s servers.

Direct installer link. For most standalone apps the link downloads a small setup file (for example VisioPro2024Retail.exe or ProjectPro2024Retail.exe) that pulls the full product from Microsoft during installation. Save it, run it, and wait; the download is between one and three gigabytes.

Office Deployment Tool (ODT). For LTSC and volume versions, and when you need to control bitness or language, the link points to Microsoft’s Office Deployment Tool together with a configuration file. Extract the tool, place the configuration file next to setup.exe, open Command Prompt in that folder and run setup.exe /configure configuration.xml. The configuration file names the product, for example VisioPro2024Retail, the edition bitness and the language.

If you are installing a standalone app on a machine that already has Office, use the same channel. A retail suite pairs with a retail standalone app; an LTSC suite pairs with an LTSC standalone app. The product page and the delivery email state which channel you have.

Step 2: install next to Office (or alone)

Close all Office apps. Run the installer. Click-to-Run detects the existing Office installation and installs the new app into the same folder, so Visio appears in the Start menu alongside Word and Excel within a few minutes. If the installer stops with “We found a problem” or error 30182-39 or 30088-4, the generations do not match (see the table above) or a partially removed older Office is in the way. Run Microsoft’s Support and Recovery Assistant to remove the leftovers, restart, and run the installer again.

Installing on a machine with no Office at all works the same way; the app brings its own shared components.

Step 3: activate with your key

Open the app (Visio, Project, Access, Word, and so on). On first launch it offers a sign-in prompt; you can close it. Go to File, Account. Under Product Information click Change Product Key (sometimes shown as Change License), enter the 25-character key from your order, and click Activate. Online activation completes in seconds and the panel changes to “Product Activated”. The licence applies only to that app, so if you bought both Visio and Project you enter two keys, one in each application.

If the Change Product Key button is missing, which happens when a Microsoft 365 trial is still attached, use the command line. Open Command Prompt as administrator, change to C:Program FilesMicrosoft OfficeOffice16, run cscript ospp.vbs /dstatus to list the installed licences, remove any trial with cscript ospp.vbs /unpkey:XXXXX (its last five characters), then install your key with cscript ospp.vbs /inpkey:YOUR-KEY and activate with cscript ospp.vbs /act.

Step 4: confirm and update

Back in File, Account, click Update Options, then Update Now. Standalone apps update through the same mechanism as the suite, so a single update run keeps everything current. Check that the version number in About matches the current build; if the app reports it is up to date but older features are missing, the installer used an old cached build and a second Update Now fixes it.

Activation errors specific to standalone apps

“The products we found in your account can’t be used to activate Visio.” You signed in with a Microsoft account that has no licence for the app. Skip sign-in and use Change Product Key instead; the key is what licenses the product.

0xC004F050 immediately after entering the key. Edition mismatch: a Visio Standard key in Visio Professional, or a 2021 key in a 2024 installation. Check the product name in File, Account against your order.

Online activation refused (0xC004C060, 0xC004C003). Microsoft’s server declined the request; use telephone activation. Our Office phone activation guide covers the steps, and our free Confirmation ID service handles the call for you.

Visio or Project disappears after an Office update. A repair of the suite removed the standalone product. Run the standalone installer again; the licence is still stored and reactivates automatically.

Product-by-product notes

Visio 2024 Professional and Standard. Professional adds database reverse engineering, advanced diagram templates (BPMN, UML, wireframes) and data linking; Standard covers flowcharts, org charts and basic network diagrams. Both install the same way. Browse all Visio versions.

Project 2024 Professional and Standard. Professional adds resource management with Project Server or Project Online and team planner views. Standard handles schedules, Gantt charts and reports for a single planner. See all Project versions.

Access 2024. Installs as a standalone app and can coexist with Office Home & Business, which does not include Access. The Access runtime is a separate free download for users who only need to run databases.

Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook 2024 standalone. Useful when you need one app on a second PC without buying the suite again. Each activates independently with its own key.

Older versions (2016, 2019, 2021). Install and activate identically, with the compatibility table above deciding what can share a machine. Office 2016 and 2019 reached end of support in October 2025 and Office 2021 on 13 October 2026, so the 2024 versions are the sensible choice for new installations.

Reinstalling later

Keep your delivery email. To reinstall after a reset or on a replacement PC (within the licence’s device count), run the installer from the same link and enter the same key. If activation is refused because the previous installation is still counted, telephone activation resolves it; see our guide on keys reported as already used.

Every standalone app licence from GetDigiMarket is delivered within seconds, includes the official download, and is covered by our 180-day money-back guarantee if the key cannot be activated.

Using the Office Deployment Tool: a sample configuration

When the direct installer is not suitable, for example because you need Visio in a language other than the system language, or the LTSC build for a managed PC, the Office Deployment Tool gives you full control. Download it from Microsoft, extract it to a folder such as C:ODT, and create a file named configuration.xml with the following content, adjusting the product ID and language:

<Configuration><Add OfficeClientEdition="64" Channel="PerpetualVL2024"><Product ID="VisioPro2024Retail"><Language ID="en-us" /></Product></Add><Display Level="Full" AcceptEULA="TRUE" /></Configuration>

Open Command Prompt in C:ODT and run setup.exe /configure configuration.xml. The tool downloads Visio from Microsoft’s content delivery network and installs it. Common product IDs are VisioPro2024Retail, VisioStd2024Retail, ProjectPro2024Retail, ProjectStd2024Retail, Access2024Retail, Word2024Retail, Excel2024Retail and Outlook2024Retail. For the 2021 generation replace 2024 with 2021 and use the PerpetualVL2021 channel. After installation, activate as described in Step 3.

The ODT is also the fastest way to install several standalone apps at once: add one Product element per app inside the same Add element and run the tool once. Each app still needs its own key entered in File, Account.

Frequently asked questions