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need to activate non-subscription Microsoft Office 2019

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When I updated my Macbook Air to Monterey, I purchased and installed Microsoft Office Home & Business 2019 (having an earlier incompatible version, 2011 I believe).

It’s been working fine.

But the other day, at about the one year anniversary of the initial install, Excel refused to save my work. I eventually figured out that I needed to login to my Microsoft account and “activate” the program again (which happened automatically and painlessly once I’d logged in).

I still find this exceptionally annoying. Seems if I buy and install a program (and one that doesn’t require an annual charge), I shouldn’t be bothered with this. Imagine I hadn’t had internet access at the time, and would’ve effectively been unable to use my software.

Is my attitude reasonable ? Is there a way around this, such as editing my etc-hosts file so that Office cannot “phone home” ?

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