Which Office Version To Keep?

Question

I have subscription product Microsoft 365 Family. However in C:\Program Files there is a folder called Microsoft Office 15, while in C:\Program Files (x86) there is a folder called Microsoft Office which then contains an Office 16 folder.

Which of these should I delete without jeopardising the correct/proper subscription installation?

Answer 1

Short answer: keep "Office 16".

Long answer.

Go to Control Panel> programs and features

Look through list of installed programs for an Office 2013 installation.

If you find one, do an Office uninstall to handle it AND do an Office Repair of 365 to reset all of the registry entries.

Using "uninstall" is cleaner than simply deleting files/folders.

Bonus Reading

Version number "Office 15" was marketed as "Office 2013".

Version number "Office 16" was originally marketed as Office 2016 (accidental co-incidence) AND Office 365

Then the ******** at MS decided to continue using version number 16.0 for all subsequent versions of Office. This bad programming decision is the reason we continue to have new features "accidentally" showing up in older one-time payment versions. For me it was the Office 2019 icons showing up in my Office 2016 installation. Earlier this week an Office update was pushing new "Win11" features that were supposed to be optional in 365 only into earlier onetime payment versions TURNED ON by default, without the optional user control. In the older versions you need to use a registry hack to control these features.

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Answer 2

Thank you very much for that suggestion. I'll try it out.

Answer 3

Hello, I'm A&K. I'm glad to be able to help you.

Have you installed any other version of Office?