Office for Mac 2016: Disable Autoupdate, OneDrive Login, and Office 365 Login

Check out this thread: https://jamfnation.jamfsoftware.com/discussion.html?id=15400

The same preferences can also be combined into a profile just as an FYI. Just as another note, if you are deploying the Office 365 version of Office then you most likely want them actually signing in. But I imagine you're deploying the volume license copy.

Hi,

Pleas refer :- http://macops.ca/disabling-first-run-dialogs-in-office-2016-for-mac/

Renaming the MAU folder will remove the Check for updates in Help Menu.

Thanks & Regards,
Karthikeyan M

Thanks

How are you guys disabling this for new computers that have never had office on them? The plist isn't there so it won't write. Since the apps are sandbox, the plist never shows up. I'm thinking I'm missing something...

Posted: Today at 1:00 PM by tnielsen Thanks How are you guys disabling this for new computers that have never had office on them? The plist isn't there so it won't write. Since the apps are sandbox, the plist never shows up. I'm thinking I'm missing something...

Whether or not the plist is present doesn't prevent the defaults write command from taking place. For the main commands to nix the splash screen, this is set once on a machine-level before the applications are launched and is immediate. The autoupdate disable has to be done in the user, but could be written into the User Template folder to take effect for each user when they first login. Existing users would need the command run for each account.

never mind. I was putting "sudo" at the beginning of command.

@cdev

But the defaults delete command does require a plist to be present.

Hi,

Anyone knows how to disable Microsoft error reporting with a script on Office 2016?

@ekkehard wrote:

Looks like this has to be done for every user:

/usr/sbin/defaults write com.microsoft.autoupdate2 HowToCheck Manual

[EDIT: by the way, wrong path to defaults, should be /usr/bin not /usr/sbin.]

This seems to work when invoked as root, although user can change to "Automatic", it will switch back on relaunch:

/usr/bin/defaults write /Library/Preferences/com.microsoft.autoupdate2 HowToCheck -string "Manual"
killall cfprefsd

I found today as of the 9.93 release (maybe before?) that there is a new built-in Managed Preferences template already for "Microsoft Office Auto Update" which has the WhenToCheck and HowToCheck options pre-built, and supports custom settings (i.e. ChannelName = "External"). I'm testing a profile now to push some of our advanced users to use the InsiderFast channel with daily checks, and another for "normal" users (without Admin rights, ideally) to Manual check, External ChannelName, and DisableInsiderCheckbox.

Looks like the MCX is using the same WhenToCheck key we are setting via script.

Not sure if the Update Check Frequency options are still 1, 2, or 3, since MCX has been deprecated by Apple (?).

I wonder if 0 would set it to Never? Not at my work computer right now, but I can set when I get in and tinker with the test Mac's clock to see if MAU ever comes up.

Update: I set to "0" and set my clock ahead a week, then a month, then a year, rebooting each time, and MAU did not come up.

$ defaults write /Users/username/Library/Preferences/com.microsoft.autoupdate2 WhenToCheck 0
$ defaults read /Users/username/Library/Preferences/com.microsoft.autoupdate2 WhenToCheck
0

Will bounce this off the MS folks on Slack to see if they can look at this thread and confirm.

@donmontalvo did you find anything else out about this? I had setup some options for the autoupdate2 using Managed Preferences, but also discovered after the fact that they appear to be deprecated now. Trying to find all of the available options for MAU, as I DO want to enable AutoUpdate (as of MAU 3.6 I think, the process runs as System and doesn't prompt users for Admin credentials to install the updates).

Also combing the MacAdmins Slack channel looking for more info; seems that MAU 3.8 is now out and supports automatic download of the updates!

@donmontalvo @KSchroeder Wanted to see how you were managing the AutoUpdate? I'd like to turn this feature to manual for now and was messing with the Managed Preference but I cannot get it to work. Let me know if this is working for you.

Have a looksee here: https://macadmins.software/docs/MAU_38.pdf.

You can create a Custom Settings configuration profile and upload a plist with just the keys and values you need to manage Microsoft AutoUpdate.

You can find a sample plist for upload here: https://github.com/talkingmoose/Microsoft-Office-2016-for-Mac-Management/blob/master/AutoUpdate/Disable%20AutoUpdate/com.microsoft.autoupdate2.plist.

Hi folks,

I've tried running the root commands kindly provided by 'ekkehard', but am getting the following error message for each one...

2017-11-02 03:31:26.349 defaults[3009:685791] Could not write domain /Library/Preferences/com.microsoft.onenote.mac; exiting

To note, I've changed 'sbin' to 'bin'. Any guidance would be greatly appreciated.

Cheers, ed.

@talkingmoose - Does this still work? Uploaded it into a JAMF Config file (under custom settings) - getting failed in the logs. Preference Domain: com.microsoft.autoupdate2

:-)

@steve.bills The plist to create a configuration profile for setting AutoUpdate to manually check is still valid. If you're getting log errors about actually deploying the profile, that would be a different issue than the settings themselves.

You can verify it's related to deployment (and that the settings work) by clicking the Download button at the bottom of the configuration profile's page and installing the .mobileconfig file manually. If it installs and you see the settings are managed in AutoUpdate (after restarting the app), then you'll probably need to troubleshoot APNs connectivity.