Microsoft Office, a suite of essential productivity tools, often releases updates to enhance features, improve performance, or fix potential vulnerabilities. While updates are typically beneficial, there may be occasions when users prefer to have more control over when they are installed, especially in business environments or when using specific add-ons. In this guide, we will walk you through the steps to enable, disable, or hide Microsoft Office automatic updates, ensuring you have the flexibility to choose the update process that suits your needs.
How to Hide Enable or Disable Office Automatic Updates using Local Group Policy Editor?
To hide, enable or disable Office Automatic Updates using Local Group Policy Editor, you need to install the Office’s Group Policy template first. For that, navigate the Microsoft website and download the latest admin templates. MS Office 2013 Group Policy template, you can download from here.
Once you have downloaded the Office’s Group Policy template, double-click on the setup files to extract its contents and select a blank folder on your computer when prompted for the path. Now open the folder and copy all contents of the sub-folder admx into the C:/Windows/PolicyDefinitions/ folder. Then, copy the admin folder contents to the language-locale subfolder (for instance, “en-US”) into the respective language-locale folder under C:/Windows/PolicyDefinitions/.
When done, you can proceed with the following steps to hide, enable or disable Office Automatic Updates:-
Step 1. Open Local Group Policy Editor.
Step 2. Then, navigate to the following path in the left sidebar of Local Group Policy Editor:-
Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates > Microsoft Office 2016 > Updates
Step 3. On the right side, double-click the policy “Hide option to enable or disable updates.”
Step 4. Select the Enabled option to hide the option to enable or disable updates. Select the Not Configured option to unhide, enable or disable updates.
Step 5. Click on the Apply button.
Step 6. Press on the OK button.
How to Hide Option to Enable or Disable Updates for Office apps using Registry Editor?
Follow these steps to hide the option to Enable or Disable Updates for Office apps using Registry Editor:-
Step 1. Open Registry editor.
Step 2. Then, navigate to the following path in the Registry Editor:-
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\software\policies\microsoft\
Note: For Office 2013, you’ll need to navigate to the following path accordingly; if you don’t find then create:-
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\software\Wow6432Node\microsoft\office\15.0\common\OfficeUpdate
Step 3. Right-click on the Microsoft folder and select the New > Key option.
Step 4. Name the newly created key office. Then, right-click on office folder and select New > Key. Name it as 16.0.
Step 5. After that, right-click on the 16.0 folder. Select the New > Key option and set the name as common.
Step 6. Now, please right-click on the common key and select New > Key. Name it as an officeupdate.
Step 7. Then, right-click on the office update key and select New > DWORD (32-bit) Value. Set the name as HideEnableDisableUpdates.
Step 8. Double-click on the HideEnableDisableUpdates REG_DWORD value and set the Value data as:-
- 1 = Hide the menu option to enable or disable automatic updates
- 0 = Show the menu option to enable or disable automatic updates
Step 9. Click OK
Step 10. To enable or disable Office automatic update, right-click on the office update key and select New > DWORD (32-bit) Value. Set the name as EnableAutomaticUpdates.
Step 11. Double-click on the EnableAutomaticUpdates REG_DWORD value and set the Value data as:-
- 0 = Automatic updates are disabled
- 1 = Automatic updates are enabled
Step 12. Click on the OK button.
Also Read: How to Stop Skype from Starting Automatically on Windows 11?
Conclusion
Keeping software updated is crucial for performance and security, but there may be instances when one might want more control over these updates. Microsoft Office allows users to customize their update preferences using either the Local Group Policy Editor or the Registry Editor. Whether you want to hide, enable, or disable Office Automatic Updates, the steps provided above will guide you through the process efficiently. Always remember to proceed with caution, especially when making changes in the Registry Editor, as inadvertent mistakes can affect system performance.
