Is there anyway to stop Microsoft Office 2016 on macOS prompting for update?

Question

I want to stop this prompt:

Normally I’d encourage people to keep their system / app up-to-date, but there is only one word that can describe what Microsoft had done in Office for Mac: catastrophe.

Their Apr 2018 update destroyed the ability to display / assign Asian font correctly. Prior to the update, I can view & set Asian font using the Asian name of a font family (e.g. "細明體" instead of "PMingLiU"). But after update all fonts are displayed using English font family name. I can stil use these Asian fonts, but it's no longer be compatible with Windows version.

Besides, the performance is severely declined after update: the text input curser can’t even catch up with my typing speed.

I've managed to revert to older version via Time Machine backup. This is not the first time that Office update ruined everything so I'd always make backup before applying for update. Now I just want to stop this annoying prompt.

Answer 1

Remove the "/Library/Application Support/Microsoft/MAU2.0" folder, which to place the Microsoft Auto Update (MAU) program.

Update: I found ms-office applicaiton would create the MAU2.0 and Microsoft AutoUpdate.app automatically after some days. You can create a blank file named MAU2.0 in the "/Library/Application Support/Microsoft" folder.

sudo touch "/Library/Application Support/Microsoft/MAU2.0"

Answer 2

The most elegant way is to:

1. Remove com.microsoft.update.agent.plist from /Library/LaunchAgents folder.

2. Disable the accessibility to the updater with

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

If you just do step 2 and skip step one you might run into UserEventAgent Process not being able to execute step 1 properly when booting the computer and this leading to high CPU load for hours.

This will disable the Microsoft Office Update mechanism and also remove the update-message within the Office Applications. It also removes the "Search for Updates" drop down in the menu "Help" within the Office Applications.

When you would like to update the system you either undo the steps above or just install/deploy the newest patches. You might have to re-run step 1 and 2 after installing the patches.

(Tested on OSX 10.13.6 with Word/Excel 16.26)

Answer 3

If you get Office from the Mac App Store, that handles all updates. You can delete your old version of the app and get It from Apple now. You do need an office 365 license, so if you have volume license or an older type license the App Store might not work for you for free.

If for some reason you are getting the app elsewhere, the usual way is to open updates from the word help menu and enable manual update checks.

The Microsoft Auto Update program (MAU) is undergoing pretty rapid and dramatic improvements including the ability to set preferences to control updates as well as command line updates. Check this site and link for details as well as links to old versions of apps if you decide you need to roll back an update or manually update part of Office 2016 and not Word.

• https://macadmins.software/docs/MAU_38.pdf
• https://www.office4mac.com

Answer 4

Apparently, this Microsoft employee has published a script to specifically suppress this update prompt.

https://github.com/pbowden-msft/ResetUpdateMessage

I haven't tested it, but the source is there to analyze.

Answer 5

This seems to have worked for me - extracted this from the ResetUpdateMessage script on @David William's answer.

Word:

sudo /usr/bin/touch -mt $(date "+%Y%m%d0001") "/Applications/Microsoft Word.app/Contents/Info.plist"

Excel:

sudo /usr/bin/touch -mt $(date "+%Y%m%d0001") "/Applications/Microsoft Excel.app/Contents/Info.plist"

Ppowerpoint:

sudo /usr/bin/touch -mt $(date "+%Y%m%d0001") "/Applications/Microsoft Powerpoint.app/Contents/Info.plist"

One thread suggests the nag is run after 90 days without an update. If so these commands will need running every 90 days. Another thread suggests it is run after missing 3 updates.

To schedule with crontab type sudo crontab -e in Terminal (or iTerm etc), press i, and enter the following to run this every Wednesday at 2pm:

# min  hour  day_of_month  month  day_of_week  command
0 14 * * 3 sudo /usr/bin/touch -mt $(date "+%Y%m%d0001") "/Applications/Microsoft Word.app/Contents/Info.plist"
1 14 * * 3 sudo /usr/bin/touch -mt $(date "+%Y%m%d0001") "/Applications/Microsoft Excel.app/Contents/Info.plist"
2 14 * * 3 sudo /usr/bin/touch -mt $(date "+%Y%m%d0001") "/Applications/Microsoft Powerpoint.app/Contents/Info.plist"

Then press [esc] :wq [Return].

Apple recommends another way to schedule on MacOS. I find crontab simpler. It won't run if your laptop's off though (solutions here) although it only needs to run once every few attempts. If you'd rather only run monthly replace 0 14 * * 3 with 0 14 1 * *, but there's no real reason to.

A checkbox in Preferences would have been nice!