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Office not updating automatically

Adrian Evangelista 46 Reputation points
2022-06-24T13:50:23.027+00:00

Hi, recently discovered that Office deployments were set to not auto update Office. I have since deployed a Configuration Profile to update this config.
2 things that i wanted to archive was to update the Office Update Channel from semi-annual to MonthlyEnterprise and to also enable auto updates.

Initially, i deployed the Configuration profile which shows as succeeded, however, after checking the registry (HKLM:\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office\ClickToRun\Configuration) to review the changes, they did not update.

I then deployed a secondary job to update the registry keys for 'CDNBaseUrl' and also 'UpdatesEnabled'. I confirmed these settings did apply after the intne PS job had run.

Question is, how can i force Office to update with minimal impact to the users. I am aware that users can run the command :

For a Silent (no GUI) experience:
C:\Program Files\Common Files\microsoft shared\ClickToRun\OfficeC2RClient.exe /update user updatepromptuser=false forceappshutdown=true displaylevel=false

GUI:
C:\Program Files\Common Files\microsoft shared\ClickToRun\OfficeC2RClient.exe /update user updatepromptuser=false forceappshutdown=false displaylevel=true

Both work when run manually by users (as they have admin rights to their devices)

I did also try adding each command as a test to 'HKLM:\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\RunOnce', which did run (could see from TaskManager) but did NOT update. (also most likely users may open office during this time).

Any suggestions? can Office updates be included similarly to Windows Updates (and applied when the device is starting up/shutting down), etc?

Office Management
Office Management
Office: A suite of Microsoft productivity software that supports common business tasks, including word processing, email, presentations, and data management and analysis.Management: The act or process of organizing, handling, directing or controlling something.
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  1. Emily Hua-MSFT 27,601 Reputation points
    2022-06-27T08:27:33.85+00:00

    Hi @Adrian Evangelista

    > can Office updates be included similarly to Windows Updates (and applied when the device is starting up/shutting down), etc

    The Click 2 Run versions of Office have a scheduled task (Office Automatic Updates 2.0) that periodically checks for updates and downloads update files.

    Updates can't be applied if the Office program that has to be updated is being used by the user. If updates can't be applied for several days, under this case when the user restarts the computer, the updates are applied as Windows starts. But this won't prevent the user from logging in.
    For more, please refer to "Apply the updates for Microsoft 365 Apps".

    If you don't want to update Office through this scheduled task you can update Office by installing an updated version.
    On one test machine, you can add <Display Level="None" AcceptEULA="TRUE" CompletionNotice="No" SuppressModal="Yes" /> in configuration file and run ODT with it to have a check.

    Any updates, you can post back.

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