Overview

Microsoft Office 2013 shows the following screens when an application is launched for the first time:

More Information

Both the Office Customization Tool (OCT) and Group Policy Management Editor provide a way to disable these First Run screens

Office Customization Tool (OCT)

Note: The OCT can only be used with Windows Installer based source files for Microsoft Office 2013.

STEP ONE: Using the OCT (setup.exe /admin), go to the Features section and select Modify user settings | Microsoft Office 2013 | First Run | Disable First Run Movie

STEP TWO: Set the Disable First Run Movie to Enabled

STEP THREE:Select the Disable First Run on application boot and set it to Enabled as well

STEP FOUR: Save the resulting MSP file and use it as part of the Microsoft Office 2013 deployment

Group Policy Management Editor

STEP ONE: If you have not already, download the Office 2013 Administrative Template files. These can be downloaded from http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=35554

STEP TWO: Copy the ADMX files to %systemroot%\PolicyDefinitions and the ADML files to the language specific folder (such as en-us) under %systemroot%\PolicyDefinitions.

STEP THREE: Using the Group Policy Management Editor go to User Configuration | Policies | Administrative Templates: Policy definitions | Microsoft Office 2013 | First Run

STEP FOUR: Set the Disable First Run Movie to Enabled and the Disable Office First Run on application boot to Enabled

Note: If you would like to manage the Opt-in or First things first prompt, please see my other blog post.

Overview

Unlike earlier versions of Microsoft Office, the Microsoft Office 2013 applications, when started, show a Start screen similar to the following, rather than opening the default blank template:

More Information

You can use the Office Customization Tool (OCT) or the Group Policy Management Editor to manage this Start screen.

Office Customization Tool (OCT):

Note: The OCT can only be used with Windows Installer based source files for Microsoft Office 2013.

STEP ONE: Using the OCT (setup.exe /admin), locate the "Disable the Office Start screen for all Office applications" under Features | Modify user settings | Microsoft Office 2013 | Miscellaneous:

STEP TWO: Enable the "Disable the Office Start screen for all Office applications" setting:

STEP THREE: Save the MSP file and place it in the Updates folder of your source files prior to deploying Microsoft Office 2013

Group Policy:

STEP ONE: If you have not already, download the Office 2013 Administrative Template files. These can be downloaded from http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=35554

STEP TWO: Copy the ADMX files to %systemroot%\PolicyDefinitions and the ADML files to the language specific folder (such as en-us) under %systemroot%\PolicyDefinitions.

STEP THREE: Using the Group Policy Management Editor, locate the "Disable the Office Start screen for all Office applications" under User Configuration | Policies | Administrative Templates: Policy definitions | Microsoft Office 2013 | Miscellaneous:

STEP FOUR: Enable the "Disable the Office Start screen for all Office applications" setting:

Overview

Microsoft Office 2013 shows the following screens when an application is launched for the first time:

More Information

Both the Office Customization Tool (OCT) and Group Policy Management Editor provide a way to disable these First Run screens

Office Customization Tool (OCT)

Note: The OCT can only be used with Windows Installer based source files for Microsoft Office 2013.

STEP ONE: Using the OCT (setup.exe /admin), go to the Features section and select Modify user settings | Microsoft Office 2013 | First Run | Disable First Run Movie

STEP TWO: Set the Disable First Run Movie to Enabled

STEP THREE:Select the Disable First Run on application boot and set it to Enabled as well

STEP FOUR: Save the resulting MSP file and use it as part of the Microsoft Office 2013 deployment

Group Policy Management Editor

STEP ONE: If you have not already, download the Office 2013 Administrative Template files. These can be downloaded from http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=35554

STEP TWO: Copy the ADMX files to %systemroot%\PolicyDefinitions and the ADML files to the language specific folder (such as en-us) under %systemroot%\PolicyDefinitions.

STEP THREE: Using the Group Policy Management Editor go to User Configuration | Policies | Administrative Templates: Policy definitions | Microsoft Office 2013 | First Run

STEP FOUR: Set the Disable First Run Movie to Enabled and the Disable Office First Run on application boot to Enabled

Note: If you would like to manage the Opt-in or First things first prompt, please see my other blog post.

Overview

Unlike earlier versions of Microsoft Office, the Microsoft Office 2013 applications, when started, show a Start screen similar to the following, rather than opening the default blank template:

More Information

You can use the Office Customization Tool (OCT) or the Group Policy Management Editor to manage this Start screen.

Office Customization Tool (OCT):

Note: The OCT can only be used with Windows Installer based source files for Microsoft Office 2013.

STEP ONE: Using the OCT (setup.exe /admin), locate the "Disable the Office Start screen for all Office applications" under Features | Modify user settings | Microsoft Office 2013 | Miscellaneous:

STEP TWO: Enable the "Disable the Office Start screen for all Office applications" setting:

STEP THREE: Save the MSP file and place it in the Updates folder of your source files prior to deploying Microsoft Office 2013

Group Policy:

STEP ONE: If you have not already, download the Office 2013 Administrative Template files. These can be downloaded from http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=35554

STEP TWO: Copy the ADMX files to %systemroot%\PolicyDefinitions and the ADML files to the language specific folder (such as en-us) under %systemroot%\PolicyDefinitions.

STEP THREE: Using the Group Policy Management Editor, locate the "Disable the Office Start screen for all Office applications" under User Configuration | Policies | Administrative Templates: Policy definitions | Microsoft Office 2013 | Miscellaneous:

STEP FOUR: Enable the "Disable the Office Start screen for all Office applications" setting:

For Enterprise Customers using Office 365 ProPlus, users will be migrated to the latest version in February of 2016. If you want your users to stay on Office 2013 and continue to receive 2013 security updates, you can delay their migration to Office 2016 ProPlus. Your users will continue to receive security updates for Office 2013 ProPlus until February 2017 through the same update method you are currently using. However after that time, no additional security updates will be made for Office 2013 ProPlus, so we strongly recommend that you migrate to the latest version before February of 2017.

There are three ways we can delay the migration to Office 2016 ProPlus, The first is to use a GPO setting that blocks the update or you can push out a registry key manually that will do the same. Those options are outlined in our KB here:

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/3097292

Thirdly, we can use the Office Deployment Tool (ODT) and the configuration.xml file to prevent the migration as well.

In the configuration.xml file we will add the AutoUpgrade attribute and set it to "FALSE" like in this example configuration.xml file here:

<Configuration> 
<Updates Enabled="TRUE" AutoUpgrade="FALSE" />
</Configuration>

The Office Deployment tool was updated in December of 2015 to accommodate this new switch. If you are using the old version of the tool you can download the newest one here.

Additional Links:

Prepare to update Office 365 ProPlus to the Office 2016 version

https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/mt422981.aspx

We always recommend only having one version of Office on a machine and we recommend you use our most current versions. Having said that, there are times that due to adoption, testing, budget or migration strategies, it becomes necessary to have multiple versions of Office on a machine. There are certain combinations that are supported and others that are not.

First, there are now two architectures of Office builds. Volume Licensing (MSI) and Office click-to-run (Office 365) There are also three main Office products that we will look at here. Office Professional Plus, Visio and Project. Also, for the purpose of this article, installing one application like Skype for Business for example is the same as installing the entire Office suite. I will walk through some supported and unsupported scenarios here:

Unsupported:

Any MSI product(s) alongside the same year’s Click-to-run product(s) Example – Office ProPlus 2013 click-to-run and Visio 2013 MSI

Any Office 2013 Click-to-run product(s) alongside any 2016 click-to-run product(s).

Any Office 2016 click-to-run product alongside 2016 MSI language packs. (*note- you can have Office 2013 click-to-run and 2013 MSI language packs but they are not recommended. There are some known issues with this configuration)

Supported: (but not recommended)

Office ProPlus 2016 click-to-run and any 2013, 2010, or 2007 MSI product (ProPlus, Visio, Project)

Office ProPlus 2013 click-to-run and any 2016, 2010 or 2007 MSI product (ProPlus, Visio, Project)

Any combination of Office 2007, 2010, 2013 and 2016 MSI products (*note – you can only have one version of Outlook running at one time)

Keep in mind that there is a reason that we will say “supported but not recommended.” Issues with SharePoint Integration, Interop keys and other issues have been reported, as well as potentially new issues can occur when you use multiple versions of Office. So again, we recommend always being on the latest and greatest builds.

Additional resources:

Office installed using Click-to-Run and Window Installer on same computer isn't supported:
https://support.office.com/en-us/article/Office-installed-using-Click-to-Run-and-Window-Installer-on-same-computer-isn-t-supported-30775ef4-fa77-4f47-98fb-c5826a6926cd?ui=en-US&rs=en-US&ad=US

Install and use different versions of Office on the same PC:
https://support.office.com/en-us/article/Install-and-use-different-versions-of-Office-on-the-same-PC-6EBB44CE-18A3-43F9-A187-B78C513788BF

Issue: When customers install Office Professional Plus 2013 MSI or Lync 2013 MSI standalone and use the Office Customization Tool (OCT) to change the default Start Menu Shortcut path, after installing the April 2015 update for Office which transforms Lync 2013 to Skype for Business 2013, the shortcut for Skype for Business will remain as “Lync 2013” which can be confusing for end users.

We can work around this by using a PowerShell script like the following sample to change the Lync shortcut icons to Skype for Business icons. *Note – this script is an example script and should be tested before being used in production.

============================================
$shortcutLocation = "C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Office 2013\"
$oldShortcut = "Lync 2013.lnk"
$newShortcut = "Skype for Business 2015.lnk"
$iconComment = "Connect with people everywhere through voice and video calls, Skype Meetings, and IM."

# Rename shortcut:
Rename-Item $shortcutLocation$oldShortcut $newShortcut

# Change the new shortcut settings
$shell = New-Object -COM WScript.Shell
$shortcut = $shell.CreateShortcut($shortcutLocation+$newShortcut)
$shortcut.Description = $iconcomment
$shortcut.Save()

#Get the Icon Name and Folder
$iconlocation = $shortcut.IconLocation
$tempInd = $iconlocation.indexof("Icon")

$iconName = $iconlocation.substring($tempInd,$iconlocation.indexof(".exe")-$tempInd )
$iconFolder = $iconlocation.substring(0,$tempInd)

#Change the icon:
Rename-Item $iconFolder$iconName".exe" $iconFolder$iconName"_old.exe"
Copy-Item $iconFolder"lyncicon.exe" $iconFolder$iconName".exe" -force

=====================================

This blog was submitted by Jeremy Chapman, director on the Office team

Many organizations use the Microsoft Deployment Toolkit (MDT) to deploy Windows with Office to new computers or when re-imaging computers. You can use the tools to deploy just applications, or as part of an operating system + application deployment.

If you’ve been deploying Office or using MDT for a few years, you may know that the integration for Office deployment began in 2007 when MDT was called Business Desktop Deployment 2007 and Office 2007 suites introduced the Office Customization Tool. These capabilities have remained largely unchanged for the MSI package versions of Office over the years – currently Office Professional Plus 2016 and Office Standard 2016.

Fast forward to 2016 and while the tools have been consistent for around nine years, what if you were the IT administrator tasked with building out an imaging solution for Windows 10 and Office 2016 today using MDT? Where is the process documented for installing Office 2016? It turns out the process is documented on TechNet… but labeled as the approach for Office 2010. In reality, the same approach works in Office 2013 and Office 2016 MSI packages.

Once you’ve downloaded and installed MDT, installed the Windows 10 Automated Deployment Kit, and downloaded Office installation files from the Volume Licensing Service Center, here’s what you do to add Office 2016 into your MDT deployment share.

1.  Under MDT Deployment Share, click Applications and then click New Application in the Action pane. The New Application Wizard opens to the Application Type page.

2.  On the Application Type page, make sure that Application with source files is selected, and then click Next.

3.   On the Details page:

       a.     Under Publisher, type the name of the application publisher (optional).

       b.     Under Application Name, type a descriptive name for the application (required).

       c.     Under Version, type the application version (optional).

       d.     Under Language, type the application language (optional).

       e.     Click Next.

4.   On the Source page:

       a.     Click Browse. In the Browse for Folder dialog box, locate and select the folder that contains the setup files for the particular application, and then click OK.

       Note: If you want to move the setup files instead of copying them, select the check box that is next to Move the files to the deployment share instead of copying them.

       b.    Click Next.

5.    On the Destination page, accept or change the default destination folder (the deployment share folder that will contain the application source files) that was assigned by the wizard, and then click Next.

6.    On the Command Details page:

       a. Under Command line, type the command that you want to be run at the start of the application installation. This is typically “setup.exe”, you can access the Office Customization Tool via the Application Properties > Office Products tab later.

       b. Click Next

7.    On the Summary page, click Next.

8.    The Progress page indicates that the share is being created. On the Confirmation page, click Finish. The New Application Wizard finishes, and the application name that you typed in the Application Name page appears in the Deployment Workbench details pane.

Now you can access the properties of the Office 2016 install in the Applications menu of your deployment share.

Here in the Office Products tab, you can select the Office product to install and configure Display Level, automatically accept the EULA and suppress reboots.

The majority of your granular Office customization will be done via the Office Customization Tool (OCT), which outputs an update (.MSP) file that is automatically consumed as part of the Office installation. Plus you can use MDT to deploy additional Office applications – like the legacy versions of InfoPath or SharePoint Designer – or use it to install custom Office add-ins. Once you’ve finished the above steps and anything you want to do with the OCT, you can start building Windows or custom application-only deployment task sequences with MDT. 

Starting April, 2016, MSI-based non-security updates will be released on the first Tuesday of each month and MSI-based security updates will be released (as usual) on the second Tuesday of each month.

For more details, please see the following blog post:

https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/office_sustained_engineering/2016/03/28/upcoming-change-to-the-release-schedule-for-non-security-updates/

After you install the April 5, 2016, update for Outlook 2013 (KB3114941), you may experience random crashes of Microsoft Lync 2013 (Skype for Business) or Microsoft Outlook 2013, or both. This issue is outlined in detail here.

The workaround is to roll your 2013 ProPlus users back to the March build – here are the steps to do so:

Referencing this article, we can use the C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office 15\Clientx64\OfficeC2RClient.exe command to roll a user back to the March build. If your organization is using the Microsoft CDN to get your Office click to run updates, simply run this command on your affected machine(s):

C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office 15\Clientx64\OfficeC2RClient.exe /update user updatetoversion=15.0.4805.1003   *note – in the article linked at the beginning of this paragraph, there are other switches we can also add such as display level and update prompts for the users that we can also use depending on the experience you want to deliver for this workaround.

If you are managing your own updates, you have to take one extra step by first downloading the 15.0.4805.1003 build first if you no longer have it. This is because if we do not use the Office CDN as our updates location, but rather an internal file share, when running the command to roll back to the March build, Office will look to that internal updates location for 15.0.4805.1003. If it is not present, we will see this error:

If you are not sure if your updates are coming from an internal share or the Microsoft CDN, look to this registry key to tell us:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office\15.0\ClickToRun\configuration

In this key, look for UpdateURL and the value will either be HTTP://officecdn.microsoft.com/…. indicating you are using Microsoft’s CDN or you will see \\servername\share\… Indicating you are managing your own updates. If you don’t have an UpdateURL value at all, you are also using the Microsoft CDN.

Once you verify that your organization is managing its own updates, we can use the Office Deployment Tool (ODT) to download 15.0.4805.1003 and then add it your internal update share.

Here is a blog outlining how to use the Office Deployment Tool (ODT)

One change we will have to make when using the Office deployment tool is we will have to specify the version we want to download because the default is to download the newest version and we want 15.0.4805.1003. Here is what your configuration.xml file will look like with the added Version value.

<Configuration>
<Add SourcePath=”\\server\share\…” Version=”15.0.4805.1003″ OfficeClientEdition=”32″ >
<Product ID=”O365ProPlusRetail”>
<Language ID=”en-us” />
</Product>
</Add>
</Configuration>

Next, follow the steps outlined in the Using the Office Deployment tool for click to run blog to download (setup.exe /download configuration.xml) 15.0.4805.1003 and once the download is complete, add the source files to your internal updates location. Now we can run the command to roll back to that build:

C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office 15\Clientx64\OfficeC2RClient.exe /update user updatetoversion=15.0.4805.1003

Links:

April 5, 2016, update for Outlook 2013 (KB3114941) https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/3114941

Lync 2013 (Skype for Business) or Outlook 2013 Crash https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/3158521

The new Update Now feature for Office 2013 Click-to-Run for Office365 https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/odsupport/2014/03/03/the-new-update-now-feature-for-office-2013-click-to-run-for-office365-and-its-associated-command-line-and-switches/

Using the Office Deployment Tool for Click-to-Run https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/odsupport/2014/07/11/using-the-office-deployment-tool-for-click-to-run/

Issue:

If your organization has not taken steps to prevent the upgrade, users will start seeing the following business bar in their Office applications:

Resolution:

If you would like to stop receiving this business bar and block upgrades, please take the following steps:

1. Follow these steps to prevent the upgrade
2. On the systems that already seeing the above business bar, edit the following registry key:
   1. HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office\15.0\ClickToRun\Updates
      UpgradePackageVersion REG_SZ   Value = 0.0.0.0

 

More Information:

When you are ready to enable upgrades simply undo the changes you made per the steps to prevent the upgrade.

 

Issue: After the recent release of the Office Deployment Tool version 16.0.7118.5775 users are seeing issues with installs/updates due to not having the V32.cab data file come down with the source files download.

Errors seen are 30029.1011 and a few other issues all stemming from the missing v32.cab file.

NOTE: Microsoft is aware of this issue and working on releasing an updated version of the Office Deployment Tool as soon as possible.

Workaround: The current workaround is to copy, duplicate, and rename the copied v32_16.0.xxxx.xxx.cab to v32.cab (See Below)

Step 1: Source file location after the initial download. As stated above you’re missing the v32.cab file.

Step 2: Copy, and then paste the copied version seen below.

Step 3: Then rename the resulting copied V32_versoned.cab to v32.cab to allow Install/Updates to continue as expected.

Office 365 updates are designed to be very network bandwidth friendly. There is Binary Delta Compression that occurs so long as the machines are staying current and Office has built in throttles to prevent every machine from trying to update at the same time. However, IT admins will sometimes still need to monitor the size of the monthly updates very closely. Here is how to determine how large the update for Office ProPlus will be:

Step 1.
Download Process Monitor from the Windows Sysinternals collection here:
https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb896645.aspx

Step 2.
When you launch Process Monitor the filter menu may auto load but if not, click on Filter > filter to open the filter menu. In here Exclude the following Event Classes:

• Registry
• File System
• Process

And only include the “OfficeClicktoRun.exe” Process Name. Your filter should look something like this:

Step 3.
Start Process Monitor and launch the manual update process by clicking “Update Now” in the File > Account menu of any Office Click-to-Run app. We will see the updates downloading and data filling in the Procmon log.

Step 4.
Once the update finishes, stop the Procmon trace and then check for the network traffic summary by going to Tools > Network Summary.

In my example I was on the July version of Deferred Channel – 16.0.6741.2056 and then updated to the August version – 16.0.6741.2063. As we can see, this update is 167,829,264 bytes, or roughly 167 MB of data.

We have an emerging issue where some clients that are using Shared Computer Activation (SCA) on our Office 2013 click-to-run clients cannot sign in. Users are seeing an error similar to this when trying to log in:

“There is a problem with your account. Please try again later.”

The reason is one of the required URLs for SCA is being blocked by some security programs:

http://clientconfig.microsoftonline-p.net/fplist.xml

We are investigating why this particular URL is being flagged to be blocked, but to fix this issue, please work with your networking and security team to ensure that this URL is whitelisted per our documentation of required URLs for Authentication and Identity here:

https://support.office.com/en-us/article/Network-requests-in-Office-365-ProPlus-eb73fcd1-ca88-4d02-a74b-2dd3a9f3364d?ui=en-US&rs=en-US&ad=US

Background

When you attempt to install Office 365 ProPlus from a local folder using the Office Deployment Tool (ODT) you get the following message:

More Information

This occurs when you have a relative path specified in the SourcePath the configuration.xml.  For example, your configuration.xml looks as follows:

<Configuration>
<Add SourcePath=".\Office2016" OfficeClientEdition="32" >
  <Product ID="O365ProPlusRetail">
      <Language ID="en-us" />
    </Product>
  </Add> 
</Configuration>

Workaround

To workaround this issue, you will need to specify an absolute path (UNC or Local folder) in the SourcePath attribute of the configuration.xml file.  For example, your configuration.xml looks as follows:

<Configuration>
<Add SourcePath="c:\Office2016" OfficeClientEdition="32" >
  <Product ID="O365ProPlusRetail">
      <Language ID="en-us" />
    </Product>
  </Add> 
</Configuration>

**UPDATE**

Our investigation determined that a certificate was recently deployed to replace an expiring certificate; however, we failed to initiate a process to whitelist the new certificate. We’ve whitelisted the certificate to restore service but users may still have a token within their client which is associated with the previous certificate. To resolve the issue, users can sign out and sign back in to one of their Office desktop applications. Alternatively, the token will expire after eight hours and a new one will be issued. If users wait for a new token, the latest that the token will expire, and that service will be restored, is 1:15 AM UTC on March 15, 2017.

We received multiple reports of an immerging issue:
“Sorry, there was a problem while trying to connect to your account with error code 0x15”

This appears to be affecting systems using Shared Computer Activation and Office 365 ProPlus with legacy authentication. Our Product Group team is currently conducting an investigation and identifying solutions for this issue. Office 2013 ProPlus is configured to use legacy authentication (IDCRL) by default and many of the customers reporting this issue are on this version. Please note the end of support for Office 365 ProPlus 2013 was on February 28, 2017. Therefore, we strongly recommend to upgrade to Office 365 ProPlus 2016.

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/3199744/support-for-the-2013-versions-of-office-365-proplus-ends-february-28,-2017

Enabling ADAL on Office 365 ProPlus systems has worked as a possible workaround while the product team determines the cause of this. For 2016 versions of ProPlus builds, ADAL is enabled by default.

The following documentation provides information about how to enable ADAL:

– How to enable the registry key for ADAL
https://support.office.com/en-us/article/Enable-Modern-Authentication-for-Office-2013-on-Windows-devices-7dc1c01a-090f-4971-9677-f1b192d6c910?ui=en-US&rs=en-US&ad=US
For Office 2016:  HKCU\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office\16.0\Common\Identity\EnableADAL

– Verify that the ADAL .dlls files are the minimum required builds for this to work properly:
https://support.office.com/en-us/article/Using-Office-365-modern-authentication-with-Office-clients-776c0036-66fd-41cb-8928-5495c0f9168a?ui=en-US&rs=en-US&ad=US&fromAR=1

Starting Office 2016 ProPlus, we have 3 production channels, namely Current, Deferred and First release for Deferred Channel. Each channel receives features updates, security and non-security updates on different intervals.

Consider a scenario the Office 2016 which is installed on the machine as Deferred Channel. Now let’s say, a new feature or fix is introduced on Current or First Release for Deferred which you would like to use. But being in Deferred channel you will have to end up waiting for a few months before this feature as an update for Deferred channel. But what if you don’t really want to wait that long. Well, in this scenario you also have an option to switch the channel of the Office from Deferred to some other channel.

Below are steps to switch Channels:

1. Identify the Channel in which fix is released. You should be able to find it here.
2. Launch Cmd prompt as administrator.
3. Navigate to “C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\ClickToRun>”
4. Run the following command to change the desired channel, let’s say Current
   “OfficeC2RClient.exe /changesetting Channel=Current”

You can use this command to switch to any other channel. Simply choose the corresponding Channel Keyword from below:

To start the switch Channel process, complete by executing “OfficeC2RClient.exe /update user” in cmd prompt path ‘C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\ClickToRun>”

This should be followed by a series of windows which will take you through the process of downloading and installing updates for the new channel that you have switch to.

The other option for changing channel is using Office Deployment Tool (ODT). Here are the steps for it:

setup.exe /configure changechannel.xml 

<Configuration> 

    <Updates Channel=”Deferred” /> 

</Configuration> 

Note:

• For instance, if you prefer to switch to a build on a particular channel, the cmd would be:
          OfficeC2RClient.exe /update user updatetoversion=16.0.xxxx.xxxx

• If you are downgrading Channels from faster channel to slower one, say from Current to Deferred, this may end up with larger than normal download of Office bits.

Reference:

Overview of Update Channels for Office 365 ProPlus

Reference on Office 2016 builds on production

Office ProPlus Client Update Channel release- features

More Information

New Channel changes are expected to effect from September 2017 as per the article. This would change the terminology used in this blog.

You may find that end users are receiving the following message when attempting to download/install Visio or Project from the O365 Portal.

Visio

Install Visio

Your admin has turned off Visio installs. Contact your admin for more information about how to get Visio in your organization.

If this is unexpected and users should have access to download Visio/Project, check the Software Download Settings from within the Admin Portal.

1. Open the Office 365 Admin Center Home page. (https://portal.office.com/adminportal/home#/homepage)

2. Under the 'Office Software' tile, select 'Software download settings'

3. You may find that Visio/Project are already set to be available for download, if so, toggle the setting to Off, then back On.

4. It may take some time for the change to be seen in the Portal download page.

For Enterprise Customers using Office 365 ProPlus, users will be migrated to the latest version in February of 2016. If you want your users to stay on Office 2013 and continue to receive 2013 security updates, you can delay their migration to Office 2016 ProPlus. Your users will continue to receive security updates for Office 2013 ProPlus until February 2017 through the same update method you are currently using. However after that time, no additional security updates will be made for Office 2013 ProPlus, so we strongly recommend that you migrate to the latest version before February of 2017.

There are three ways we can delay the migration to Office 2016 ProPlus, The first is to use a GPO setting that blocks the update or you can push out a registry key manually that will do the same. Those options are outlined in our KB here:

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/3097292

Thirdly, we can use the Office Deployment Tool (ODT) and the configuration.xml file to prevent the migration as well.

In the configuration.xml file we will add the AutoUpgrade attribute and set it to "FALSE" like in this example configuration.xml file here:

<Configuration> 
<Updates Enabled="TRUE" AutoUpgrade="FALSE" />
</Configuration>

The Office Deployment tool was updated in December of 2015 to accommodate this new switch. If you are using the old version of the tool you can download the newest one here.

Additional Links:

Prepare to update Office 365 ProPlus to the Office 2016 version

https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/mt422981.aspx

You may find that end users are receiving the following message when attempting to download/install Visio or Project from the O365 Portal.

Visio

Install Visio

Your admin has turned off Visio installs. Contact your admin for more information about how to get Visio in your organization.

If this is unexpected and users should have access to download Visio/Project, check the Software Download Settings from within the Admin Portal.

1. Open the Office 365 Admin Center Home page. (https://portal.office.com/adminportal/home#/homepage)

2. Under the 'Office Software' tile, select 'Software download settings'

3. You may find that Visio/Project are already set to be available for download, if so, toggle the setting to Off, then back On.

4. It may take some time for the change to be seen in the Portal download page.