Remove Office 2016 Update Banner

[iRyan23]

At the beginning of the academic year, I pushed out version 15.35 and we lock most software updates during the semester to prevent any additional headaches. I opened Word last week and saw a nice banner at the top telling me to update my Office. I run a script during Office install that sets update checking to Manual and have never seen this banner until recently. I do not see any options in the GUI to not display this update banner. Does anyone know how to disable it?

[talkingmoose · Accepted solution]

We had a recent discussion about this in the #microsoft-office channel on Slack.

This should only appear on Macs where Office 2016 is three or more versions behind in updates. I believe Microsoft is considering a profile setting to allow us to suppress this for managed systems.

In the meantime, you won't see this message if you remove the Microsoft AutoUpdate application found in "/Library/Application Support/Microsoft/MAU2.0" folder.

[iRyan23]

Thanks a lot, that solved it for now!

[KarmaLama]

@iRyan23 Hi Ryan, how did u solve this ? Is it by upgrading the Office or did u remove the MSAutoupdate app.

Thank you in advance.

[iRyan23]

@KarmaLama

I added a script that just runs "sudo rm -R /Library/Application Support/Microsoft/MAU2.0/" and that should remove the updater so Office doesn't know it's out-of-date and doesn't prompt you with the banner I initially posted about.

[edullum]

@KarmaLama @talkingmoose If you do this and then want to push out updates for Microsoft Office, would you have to add that back onto the Mac?

[talkingmoose]

@edullum, You only need MAU installed if you're planning to use it to download and install updates. If you choose to download the update packages yourself and deploy them via Jamf, you don't need MAU installed.

[edullum]

Thanks!! I'll do that!

[Duke78]

I can see this folder on my Mac, but when I try to send the UNIX command "rm /Library/Application_Support/Microsoft/MAU2.0/Microsoft_AutoUpdate.app" I get a message saying no such file or directory exists. Has anyone else had this issue?

EDIT: Nevermind, iRyan's solution worked for me. thanks!

[jrepasky]

You don't need to completely remove it. You can just change the permissions to 500

sudo chmod 500 "/Library/Application Support/Microsoft/MAU2.0"

[bradtchapman]

@talkingmoose : Thanks for the suggestion.

Curious, though ... would it be enough to unload the LaunchAgent that launches Microsoft AU Daemon?

/Library/Application Support/Microsoft/MAU2.0/Contents/MacOS/Microsoft AU Daemon.app

[talkingmoose]

@bradtchapman, I've never tested this. For me, it's like having a mono button on a stereo. Why turn a good thing off? :-P

You could probably just set the Disabled key in the launch agent to true and get away with that too.

[bradtchapman]

@talkingmoose - because every good engineer checks their sound mix in mono before switching to stereo:

Sound on Sound: Should I be mixing in Mono?

Kendrick Lamar mixes in mono for 80% of the mix

[donmontalvo]

@iRyan23 we reported this some time ago, and @pbowden did some research and turned around a manageable fix.

I think he is tied with @talkingmoose for number of beers we owe. ;)

pbowden-msft/ResetUpdateMessage

[talkingmoose]

@bradtchapman, well played, sir. Touché. I'll be hitting you up when I'm ready for my greatest hits album.

[jose_gocobachi]

@talkingmoose Good idea. I am going to try to unload /Library/Application Support/Microsoft/MAU2.0/Microsoft AutoUpdate.app/Contents/MacOS/Microsoft AU Daemon.app and see if that works. Looks like https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/msoffice/forum/all/how-to-prevent-microsoft-au-daemon-from-running-on/8cbe1d54-02c4-48f3-88ad-cba301b6396b specifies running the following commands of which I am going to script out, test, and deploy to my users.
launchctl stop com.microsoft.update.agent
launchctl remove com.microsoft.update.agent
sudo launchctl stop com.microsoft.update.agent
sudo launchctl remove com.microsoft.update.agent
sudo launchctl stop com.microsoft.autoupdate.helper
sudo launchctl remove com.microsoft.autoupdate.helper

[jose_gocobachi]

I created a Configuration Profile and imported all of the .plist that turns off pretty much everything annoying including Autoupdate.

[seann]

@jose.gocobachi Has this worked well for you? Can you share what you set?

[donjakubczak]

Thanks to my boss here we simplified the code from Microsoft to do the same thing every startup. Thought I would pass it on.

# Uncomment next line if you want to see every command echoed to the terminal
#set -x

# Path to each MS Office application. If these locations change on the system,
# then these need to be modified.
WORD2016PATH="/Applications/Microsoft Word.app"
EXCEL2016PATH="/Applications/Microsoft Excel.app"
POWERPOINT2016PATH="/Applications/Microsoft PowerPoint.app"

# counters
APPCOUNT=0
ERRORCOUNT=0

# Datetime stamp for the touch command.
# This appears to be one minute after midnight today
TOUCHDATE=$(date "+%Y%m%d0001")


if [ -e "$WORD2016PATH" ]; then
    /usr/bin/touch -mt $TOUCHDATE "$WORD2016PATH/Contents/Info.plist"
    if [ "$?" == "1" ]; then
        ERRORCOUNT=$(($ERRORCOUNT + 1))
    else
        APPCOUNT=$(($APPCOUNT + 1))
    fi
fi
if [ -e "$EXCEL2016PATH" ]; then
    APPCOUNT=$(($APPCOUNT + 1))
    /usr/bin/touch -mt $TOUCHDATE "$EXCEL2016PATH/Contents/Info.plist"
    if [ "$?" == "1" ]; then
        ERRORCOUNT=$(($ERRORCOUNT + 1))
    else
        APPCOUNT=$(($APPCOUNT + 1))
    fi
fi
if [ -e "$POWERPOINT2016PATH" ]; then
    APPCOUNT=$(($APPCOUNT + 1))
    /usr/bin/touch -mt $TOUCHDATE "$POWERPOINT2016PATH/Contents/Info.plist"
    if [ "$?" == "1" ]; then
        ERRORCOUNT=$(($ERRORCOUNT + 1))
    else
        APPCOUNT=$(($APPCOUNT + 1))
    fi
fi

printf "%s apps touched
" $APPCOUNT
printf "%s errors
" $ERRORCOUNT

[user-kMraWkySwv]

Hey guys, I see this an old post but I have the same problem, Im seeing that theres a code here pbowden-msft/ResetUpdateMessage
But I just know how to turn the mac on hahaha so Im asking the steps so I can do this to remove the Update Advise..

On the other way, when I look at finder I reach library/Microsoft, but then, I cant see MAU2.0 folder, when I open Microsoft folder there´s just 2 folders (Office and Teams), now, at the same line than Microsoft, there´s other forlders "Microsoft AU Daemon", "Microsoft AutoUpdate" and "Microsoft Update Assistant" but any MAU2.0...

My OS is High Sierra on a MacBook Pro Early 2011.

I´ll wait for any help!

Thanks a lot

R

[user-123]

@user-kMraWkySwv It's actually found in the following directory:
/Library/Application Support/Microsoft/MAU2.0

Once there, drag the application "Microsoft AutoUpdate" to the trash (you will be prompted for your administrator password), then select "Empty Trash" from the File menu, and click OK.

I can confirm that this method works immediately for Office 2016 using macOS High Sierra! I have no plans to purchase a new license from MS when this version works just fine, so it's great to be rid of those nagging update banners.