Office Setup thinks I have a 32 bit version of office installed

Question

Office Setup thinks I have a 32 bit version of office installed

Jpegman69 20

I had Office 2007 installed and bought a copy of Office 2021 from PCWorld shop and tried to install it. It recommended to uninstall all versions of office before the install. I used Revo Uninstalled pro to remove all versions of office on my win 11 PC, followed by SaraSetup. SaraSetup (Microsoft Support and Recovery Assistant) said it could not find any remnants of any office applications.

When I then tried to run OfficeSetup.exe for Office 2021, it refused to install because it said Office 32 bit was installed and OfficeSetup was trying to install Office 64bit.

What to do

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Answer accepted by question author

Stefan Blom 351.5K MVP Volunteer Moderator

See if any other 32 bit Office applications, such as 32 bit Visio or Project, are installed on the PC. These must be uninstalled as well.

If nothing else works, what remains is to uninstall Office manually. See https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/manually-uninstall-office-4e2904ea-25c8-4544-99ee-17696bb3027b .

Jpegman69 20 Reputation points

2025-09-03T21:16:27.29+00:00

IT took many, many hour (Maybe 4-6) to complete the steps and try to understand Microsoft lingo in abbreviated steps, but, I held my breath and rebooted my pc after i closed the registry - AND IT WORKED.

BTW - I backed up my entire registry (not even suggested in the Manual Uninstall Office procedure) Just in case.
Stefan Blom 351.5K Reputation points MVP Volunteer Moderator

2025-09-04T11:50:25.8966667+00:00

I'm glad you got it sorted. Did you have to do the manual uninstall?
Jpegman69 20 Reputation points

2025-09-04T15:41:21.8466667+00:00

Yes - That's what took 4-6 hours of manually going through the registry.
Stefan Blom 351.5K Reputation points MVP Volunteer Moderator

2025-09-04T21:42:48.4733333+00:00

Thanks for the clarification.

2 additional answers

Your answer

Jpegman69 20 Reputation points

2025-09-03T21:16:27.29+00:00

IT took many, many hour (Maybe 4-6) to complete the steps and try to understand Microsoft lingo in abbreviated steps, but, I held my breath and rebooted my pc after i closed the registry - AND IT WORKED.

BTW - I backed up my entire registry (not even suggested in the Manual Uninstall Office procedure) Just in case.
Stefan Blom 351.5K Reputation points MVP Volunteer Moderator

2025-09-04T11:50:25.8966667+00:00

I'm glad you got it sorted. Did you have to do the manual uninstall?
Jpegman69 20 Reputation points

2025-09-04T15:41:21.8466667+00:00

Yes - That's what took 4-6 hours of manually going through the registry.
Stefan Blom 351.5K Reputation points MVP Volunteer Moderator

2025-09-04T21:42:48.4733333+00:00

Thanks for the clarification.

Answer 1

Hi Jpegman69,

Thank you for reaching out and sharing your experience with the Microsoft Community.

I understand how frustrating it must be to encounter installation issues after carefully uninstalling previous Office versions. Based on what you've described, it sounds like the OfficeSetup.exe for Office 2021 is attempting to install the 64-bit version, but remnants of a 32-bit Office installation are still being detected—even though you've used Revo Uninstaller Pro and the Microsoft Support and Recovery Assistant (SaRA).

To help narrow down the issue, could you please confirm the following:

Did you download the Office 2021 installer directly from Microsoft or from a retail package provided by PCWorld?
Have you tried running the Office Deployment Tool to customize the installation and force a 32-bit or 64-bit install?
Are there any Office-related registry entries still present on your system?

In the meantime, here are a few steps you can try:

Use the Office Deployment Tool to create a custom configuration file that explicitly installs the 64-bit version.
Check for leftover registry entries under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office and HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\WOW6432Node\Microsoft\Office.
Run the SaRA tool again, but this time select “Advanced diagnostics” to scan deeper for hidden remnants.

If things still don’t work out, feel free to share an update, I’ll be happy to assist further.

Wishing you the best of luck!

If you found this answer helpful, please click 'Accept Answer' and consider giving it an upvote to help others facing the same issue. Your support is greatly appreciated by the Community.

Answer 2

Jpegman69 20

Hi Zoevi-V,

OfficeSetup.exe is a 8Mb file downloaded from MS when I told them the license #
Not sure how easy it is to use the Office Deployment Tool

+++++++++++++++

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office has a few entries but non see 32 bit related

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\WOW6432Node\Microsoft\Office. has more entries but am not sure what to do - Just delete the entries under the above keys?

The Sara Tool never offers an “Advanced diagnostics” option!

Hank

Zoevi-V 4,015 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator

2025-09-02T04:04:19.13+00:00
Hi Hank,

Thank you for your quick response.

I’d like to offer a few alternative options and guidance that are less technical and more convenient to follow:

A – Check what’s actually installed

Open Settings → Apps → Installed apps and make sure there’s no “Microsoft Office” or “Microsoft 365” listed.

Also check for individual components like “Microsoft Access Runtime”, “Office Click-to-Run”, or “Office Upload Center”. Uninstall those if present.

B – Clean up leftover Office files

Download Microsoft’s official Office uninstall support tool (different from SaRA)

Run it > Select Office 2007 / 2010 / 2013 / 2016 / 2019 / 2021 / Microsoft 365 and let it remove everything.

Restart your PC.

C – Run cleanup script

Open Notepad.

Copy-paste the following:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00 ; Removes Office entries from 64-bit registry path [-HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office] ; Removes Office entries from 32-bit registry path on 64-bit systems [-HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\WOW6432Node\Microsoft\Office]

Save the file on Desktop as: office_cleanup.reg

Make sure Save as type = All Files, not ~~.txt~~.

Double-click the file, then you will be asked to confirm Run as administrator → Click Yes

Restart your PC.

I encourage you to give these steps a try—things usually work out with a bit of patience and attention. Looking forward to hearing a positive update from you soon.

Best regards,

Zoevi
Jpegman69 20 Reputation points

2025-09-02T15:22:29.18+00:00

Good Morning Zoevi-V,

A The only installed apps left are MS 365 Copilot, Bing,, Clipchamp, Edge, Office File Validation, OneDrive, Sara, Teams, To do, Update Health Tools , and a whole list of Visual C+++ redistributables.

B Downloaded "SetupProd_OffScrub.exe" and ran it and it opened SaRA !

C Created file called "office_cleanup.reg" and ran it. Didn't have an option to run as administrator but it added it to registry. Rebooted and when I ran Officesetup,exe got the same error message "Cannot install 64bit Office because 32 bit already on"

Hank