Removing preinstalled Office trial in Win10

[Niku-Sama]

ok I have a weird one that I have been trying to get figured out.

I got about 26 new desktops that are going to replace the 12 year old systems at the company I work for and they all came with a trial version of office installed.
Its not a Click to Run version of office that we need to use for some of the beefer apps like Visio and what not.

I can install the Click to Run base version of office (word excel outlook etc.) along side of it but it wont over write it.
It seems to be loaded like some of those stupid games are that show up on your start menu from time to time.

you can "uninstall" it from the start menu but it only removes it for that user, when some one signs in on AAD or a new local user is created it brings it back again.

it does not show in the add/remove programs option in the control panel

The fix it tool for office does not see it

I found some power shell and command lines to run and it does not remove it either.


all I need to do is be able to remove it on a computer to computer basis with out having to re install everything over a otherwise perfectly good factory install of win 10 pro from Lenovo. Just trying to save time here. Prep time from unpack to deploy after installing all of our applications and setting up AAD is about 15 minutes per, reinstalling over is going to create a huge headache and probably triple that time.

In case any one is wondering the computer model is a Lenovo ThinkCenter 710t, i3-7100, 1x8GB DDR4, 500GB HDD, No ODD, No GPU. Pretty bare bones but better than the C2D and 4 gigs of DDR2 they are replacing.


Any ideas?

 

[Alaric]

This is supposed to be pretty useful http://www.majorgeeks.com/files/details/msmg_toolkit.html
I'm not sure how thorough a job Revo Uninstaller would do on it, as I haven't used it in W10 yet. https://www.revouninstaller.com/revo_uninstaller_free_download.html
Found this http://www.majorgeeks.com/files/details/pleasant_windows_10.html

 

[TheCheat]

You could try the Office Removal Tool.

https://support.office.com/en-us/ar...rom-a-pc-9dd49b83-264a-477a-8fcc-2fdf5dbf61d8

Edit: I think you may have already tried this.... but called it the easy fix it tool.

Unless you are familiar with WADK, it appears the easiest way around this is a fresh install. The removal instructions for that particular version of office looks very time consuming.

 

[Pinky]

I actually came across this with some recently purchased Dell laptops. It appears to be an Office app (app store install), which explains why it's not removing itself in the traditional manner. Let me see what more I can find, it sounds like I'll need to get on top of this myself for work.

 

[Pinky]

Okay, it looks like I was mostly correct - it's likely an app version of MS Office from the microsoft app store. It appears there's a few way to address it, first is to go into settings-->apps, uninstall it from there, then apply the registry setting from this thread to block it from reinstalling:

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us...s/b0209eb9-3594-43ed-9b09-3ec115dd613d?auth=1

According to one reply the latest Windows 10 builds do not reinstall previously uninstalled apps, but I haven't tried any of this yet so I can't verify if that's true.

Just curious - do the users on your computers have Office 365 email/business? I was wondering if that was what triggered the reinstallation on the laptops we recently purchased, since the business we deployed them for uses Office 365 for email [but have volume licensing for their actual Office 2016 product]. Our issue was the side-by-side nature of having the local Office install and cloud/store app install was creating glitchiness when they were doing certain things in Office.

 

[trents]

Since the machines already have Windows 10 on them you could also do a fresh clean install of the OS from an ISO install media (i.e. Microsoft Media Creation Tool) and eliminate all that OEM garbage. If you would do a clean install on one machine, adding in any software your workforce uses, you could then image the drive on that machine and then use the image to rebuild all the others. Just make sure you change the machine name after each rebuild so you don't have duplicates on the network. We do it this way at the school I support.

 

[Niku-Sama]

This is supposed to be pretty useful http://www.majorgeeks.com/files/details/msmg_toolkit.html
I'm not sure how thorough a job Revo Uninstaller would do on it, as I haven't used it in W10 yet. https://www.revouninstaller.com/revo_uninstaller_free_download.html
Found this http://www.majorgeeks.com/files/details/pleasant_windows_10.html

I'll give these a whirl in the next few days

You could try the Office Removal Tool.

https://support.office.com/en-us/ar...rom-a-pc-9dd49b83-264a-477a-8fcc-2fdf5dbf61d8

Edit: I think you may have already tried this.... but called it the easy fix it tool.

Unless you are familiar with WADK, it appears the easiest way around this is a fresh install. The removal instructions for that particular version of office looks very time consuming.

yea we haven't had the need for the assessment and deployment kit as of yet, so yea its a pretty unfamiliar beast.

Okay, it looks like I was mostly correct - it's likely an app version of MS Office from the microsoft app store. It appears there's a few way to address it, first is to go into settings-->apps, uninstall it from there, then apply the registry setting from this thread to block it from reinstalling:

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us...s/b0209eb9-3594-43ed-9b09-3ec115dd613d?auth=1

According to one reply the latest Windows 10 builds do not reinstall previously uninstalled apps, but I haven't tried any of this yet so I can't verify if that's true.

Just curious - do the users on your computers have Office 365 email/business? I was wondering if that was what triggered the reinstallation on the laptops we recently purchased, since the business we deployed them for uses Office 365 for email [but have volume licensing for their actual Office 2016 product]. Our issue was the side-by-side nature of having the local Office install and cloud/store app install was creating glitchiness when they were doing certain things in Office.

They do, we have a Office 365 E1 plan

any way I think I tried that registry entry before and it works for the initial user but if some one logs in after on Azure or we create another local account for some one it installs for those new users again. I'll double check tomorrow though.
what irritates me the most is it "downloads" right after first boot/log in on a new user

normally when I had to install 10 on the core 2 duos it would just have the "get office" orange metro like icon and that was it, easily ignored didn't cause problems. I don't understand why a company would do any thing more than that. Next batch we get i'll have to ask about eliminating that from our install if at all possible.

Since the machines already have Windows 10 on them you could also do a fresh clean install of the OS from an ISO install media (i.e. Microsoft Media Creation Tool) and eliminate all that OEM garbage. If you would do a clean install on one machine, adding in any software your workforce uses, you could then image the drive on that machine and then use the image to rebuild all the others. Just make sure you change the machine name after each rebuild so you don't have duplicates on the network. We do it this way at the school I support.

aside from the office thing theres not much else that is coming on these machines that's pre installed, one Lenovo app and then the usual candy crap games and what not that I get on any fresh install of Win10.
I'm trying to avoid having to reinstall windows 10 on all of these systems because right now its starting off with 26 new computers but that still leaves another 117 to go, so any time saved would be good as I am the only one doing this and I still have regular support on top of it.....

and sadly most of the time "turning it off and back on again" isn't working because most of my users, no joke, cant find the power button!

 

[Pinky]

Maybe check the admin area in Office 365/Azure to see if this 'push' app deployment can be turned off.

I haven't thought about this since my last post, but when the next laptop arrives (any day) I plan on tackling this head-on to be sure it doesn't come up post deployment, like it did the others.

 

[Niku-Sama]

Its nothing that's being pushed from that end of things. when I first boot the systems they not connected to the network (it skips a few things I don't need on setup that way) and it still shows up after the initial log in with out any network connection.

I haven't, had time to try things today. There was a HIPAA compliance meeting that kinda stirred the bees nest and we are trying to get them all calmed down.
no breaches, just a bunch of people that should know whats going on didn't and now they are freaking out because they didn't apply them selves to begin with

 

[Niku-Sama]

Hate to double post but I wanted to update on the progress of this

I hadn't forgotten about this at all. I made some progress. I tried and re tried all the above suggestions to no avail.
I did try to redoing the permissions of the windowsapps folder and for what ever reason this time it let me change it and delete most things but it also caused other problems.

when you delete the folders for the pre installed office apps it doesn't install them per say but it does still create blank colored blocks for those apps that don't do any thing, as well as for what ever reason killing the xbox app and solitaire app, which is odd because the Microsoft.office.xxxx were the only ones I deleted but none of those were pertinent for the workplace any way.

the problem was the rest of the garbage it caused, missing this and missing that errors strange blank popups and a bunch of broken links in the "other" section of the start menu.

now whats interesting too is I decided to restore windows and completely clean the drive from the recovery partition that Lenovo sets up on all of these but when I do that it still has these parts missing. I thought ahead before doing any of this and made a virgin image of this system but its kinda strange that it wouldn't being it back to factory specs with the factory installed OS as it was when it left the warehouse.

all of this stuff kind of coming back but not completely coming back is telling me there is some sort of script some where that's turning it on weather or not the assets are actually there. but I am at the extent of my knowledge of this sort of thing.

now I have to go and see why "windows hello for business" restricts access to a locally networked computer that's open to every one on the network

 

[Pinky]

Its nothing that's being pushed from that end of things. when I first boot the systems they not connected to the network (it skips a few things I don't need on setup that way) and it still shows up after the initial log in with out any network connection.

It's definitely not part of the default install, because I checked for any app store and program installs. It could still could be something initiated from the Office 365 (web) part of things, but so far the last computer deployed has not exhibited the symptom of the originally deployed machines. Now I'm suspecting it's something specifically triggered by the handful of end users that experienced the issue.

 

[Alaric]

Pulling pieces out of Windows 10 OEM installs can wreak havoc on the OS. Seemingly disparate apps and functions will **** the bed with no visible rhyme or reason. I ended up downloading a clean install from M$ (without their installation tool) for a Dell notebook. Wiped the recovery partition and everything. It seems M$ gave OEMs more control of the OS while removing it from the end user with W10.

 

[Woomack]

I don't have time now to read all posts and links so I will tell what I did last time.
Simply uninstalled Office via control panel/programs tab. Next installed Office on all computers from the same install file which I downloaded from one of the user accounts where was registered Office365. That was all.

 

[Maviryk]

I just got a new refurb computer in and had to resort to the Media Creation Tool method. I could not remove all the bloatware and, in addition, something kept the window's updated from succeeding.

Used a USB 3.1 flash drive to create a a window's install, booted from the USB... between that and the M.2 SSD, the computer was up and running with all updated within the hour.

My how things have changed since XP.

 

[Niku-Sama]

I just got a new refurb computer in and had to resort to the Media Creation Tool method. I could not remove all the bloatware and, in addition, something kept the window's updated from succeeding.

Used a USB 3.1 flash drive to create a a window's install, booted from the USB... between that and the M.2 SSD, the computer was up and running with all updated within the hour.

My how things have changed since XP.

ugh I was hoping to avoid this. maybe this is a good reason to get a super fast flash drive ot have the company pay for a nvme external drive so its not taking so long to get things up and going.

I don't have time now to read all posts and links so I will tell what I did last time.
Simply uninstalled Office via control panel/programs tab. Next installed Office on all computers from the same install file which I downloaded from one of the user accounts where was registered Office365. That was all.

Sadly its not there, its an odd one

 

[Alaric]

had to resort to the Media Creation Tool method.

Go to the appropriate M$ page with Internet Explorer. Hit the F12 key, then click on the Emulation tab. In the lower left corner is the User Agent String menu. Select Apple Safari (iPad) and your Media Creation page will reload giving you a direct download of Windows 10. Clean and an .iso to install the way you want.

 

[trents]

Go to the appropriate M$ page with Internet Explorer. Hit the F12 key, then click on the Emulation tab. In the lower left corner is the User Agent String menu. Select Apple Safari (iPad) and your Media Creation page will reload giving you a direct download of Windows 10. Clean and an .iso to install the way you want.

What? Why are you fooling with iPad emulations to engineer a Windows installation? What's everybody got against the Media Creation Tool? Why start with an ISO when you can directly build an install stick from the website? Unless the installdr builder is broken, that is.

 

[Alaric]

I have two W7 rigs at the moment, and two W 10 rigs. I don't know which one I'll have to reinstall next, and with a 5 Mbps connection I don't want to sit around waiting for a 4 GB download. I prefer having a disc laying around to install on my schedule.

 

[Maviryk]

I guess I have my 200/200 connection to thank then.

But, given the option between a DVD-rom and a USB, I'd choose the USB, every single time. In any case, the point is moot, as the OP does not have an optical drive on his PC.

This Win10 via USB 3.0 has been the easiest install yet.

 

[trents]

I have two W7 rigs at the moment, and two W 10 rigs. I don't know which one I'll have to reinstall next, and with a 5 Mbps connection I don't want to sit around waiting for a 4 GB download. I prefer having a disc laying around to install on my schedule.

But once you get the USB installer built, you can have it laying around just like a disk. You have to download the ISO anyway and then you have to burn it. I don't see the diff.