Update Office LTSC 2021
After you deploy Office LTSC 2021, including Project and Visio, you’ll want to keep it updated because Microsoft releases security updates and quality updates, such as updates that provide stability or performance improvements for Office. Office LTSC 2021 is updated approximately once a month, usually on the second Tuesday of the month.
Note
Office LTSC 2021 doesn't receive new features after it's released. If you want to get new Office features on an on-going basis, you should consider moving to a Microsoft 365 (or Office 365) plan that includes Office.
Office LTSC 2021 use Click-to-Run, instead of Windows Installer (MSI), as the technology used to install and update Office.
How Office LTSC 2021 gets updated
Here’s how Office updates work:
- When Microsoft releases updates for Office, a new build is made available on the Office Content Delivery Network (CDN). This build includes the latest security and quality updates.
- By default, Office is configured to automatically receive updates from the Office CDN. You can change this setting. For more information, see Configure where Office LTSC gets updates from.
- The "Office Automatic Updates 2.0" scheduled task on the device checks for updates regularly.
- If updates are available, Office automatically downloads them without user intervention. During this process, Office downloads only the necessary updates to match the latest version on the CDN.
- Users can continue working in Office apps like Word while updates are downloading. After the updates download, they're installed. If any Office apps are open, users are prompted to save their work and close the apps to install the updates.
- After installation, users can resume working in their Office apps.
How updates are different in Office LTSC 2021
Since Click-to-Run handles updates differently than Windows Installer (MSI), here are some things you need to be aware of if you're used to MSI-based updates.
- There are no separate downloads for security or quality updates. These updates are already included as part of a new build of Office LTSC 2021 that’s posted on the Office CDN.
- Updates are cumulative, so the latest version of Office LTSC 2021 available on the Office CDN includes all the security and quality updates from all the previous versions of Office LTSC 2021.
- When you download and install Office LTSC 2021 from the Office CDN, it’s up to date already. You don’t have to download and apply any additional updates or service packs before you can start using Office LTSC 2021.
- Since updates are cumulative and already included in the latest version of Office LTSC 2021 on the Office CDN, you don’t use Microsoft Updates or Windows Server Updates Services (WSUS) by itself to update Office LTSC 2021. But you can use Microsoft Configuration Manager to help you deploy and manage updates to Office LTSC 2021, including controlling when and from where updates are applied.
Configure where Office LTSC 2021 gets updates from
If network connectivity and your organizational requirements allow, update Office automatically from the Office Content Delivery Network (CDN). Updating from the Office CDN is the default, so there’s nothing extra to do, making it an easy way to keep Office up to date.
If you prefer that devices with Office installed don't connect to the Office CDN for updates, configure Office to get updates from a shared folder within your internal network. You can specify this location either in the configuration.xml file used to deploy Office with the Office Deployment Tool or by using Group Policy. At least one device must have access to the Office CDN to download the latest version of Office to the shared folder on your internal network.
Installing and updating Office from a shared folder on your local network requires more administrative effort and disk space. For example, you need to track when new builds of Office are available and then download the updated version to your network. Downloading to a shared folder on your local network downloads a full copy of the updated version of Office.
You can also use enterprise software deployment tools, such as Microsoft Configuration Manager, to help update Office.
For more information, see Deploy Office LTSC 2021
Check for updates for Office LTSC 2021
Instead of waiting for the scheduled task to run to check for updates, you can manually check for updates. To do that, open any Office app, such as Word, and go to File > Account > Update Options > Update Now.
This causes the Click-to-Run service to go look for updates at the location that you’ve configured Office to look for updates. For example, directly from the Office CDN on the internet. If updates are available, Office begins the process to download.
Size of updates for Office LTSC 2021
The size of the updates downloaded to the user's device from the update location varies depending on several factors, including how long it’s been since Office was last updated and the number of security and quality updates available.
To minimize the size of the updates that need to be downloaded, we recommend keeping Office up to date. Office uses a technology called binary delta compression to help reduce the size of updates applied to the user's device. However, binary delta compression is only available if you're updating from a recent version of Office. For example, if you're updating from the September or October version to the November version. But if you're updating a much older version of Office, such as from the June to November version, binary delta compression isn’t available.
Use Group Policy to specify update settings
If you have Windows Server and Active Directory Domain Services (AD DS) deployed in your organization, you can configure update settings for Office by using Group Policy. To do this, download the most current Administrative Template files (ADMX/ADML for Office), which include the policy settings for Office.
After you copy the Administrative Template files to AD DS, you'll find the update policy settings under Computer Configuration\Policies\Administrative Templates\Microsoft Office 2016 (Machine)\Updates in the Group Policy Management tool. You'll also find a description of how to configure each policy setting. For example, you can use the "Update path" Group Policy setting to specify where Office should look for updates.
Update channel for Office LTSC 2021
Office uses the concept of update channels to determine which updates an installed version of Office receives. Update channel is a device-wide setting, which means that all Office products, including Project and Visio, installed on a device must be using the same update channel.
“PerpetualVL2021” is the only update channel available for Office LTSC Professional Plus 2021 and Office LTSC Standard 2021. The PerpetualVL2021 update channel is also available for volume licensed versions of Project 2021 and Visio LTSC 2021.
Volume licensed versions of Project 2021 and Visio LTSC 2021 can also use other update channels, such as Current Channel, Monthly Enterprise Channel, or Semi-Annual Enterprise Channel. The reason Project and Visio can use other update channels is so that they can be installed on a device along with Microsoft 365 Apps, which supports all those other channels. But even if Project and Visio use these other update channels, they'll still only receive security and quality updates each month, not any new features.
For more information, see Overview of update channels for Microsoft 365 Apps.