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Revert to a previous version of Office 365

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I'm with Tiffany on this.  The new look is awful.  It happened to my computer overnight and I just spent 10 minutes swearing at it.  Yellow highlights on flagged messages - yuk, large spacing between rows makes them hard to follow with your eyes and the font seems to have changed to something harder to read (the "use tighter spacing" button helps but it's still hard to read and it doesn't fix the folder list).  There are now symbols that we have to learn what they mean because they have replace good old reliable and less space consuming actual WORDS (reply, forward, reply all).  It's difficult to post screenshots of Outlook without disclosing personal information.

Tiffany asked if there is a way to revert to the previous version.  I would also like an answer to that question please and how to stop it automatically updating.  I want to make an informed decision whether or not to update application software on my PC and not have it forced upon me.

Thank you.

Answer
Answer

Hi Grace,

 

May I confirm that you want to revert to a previous version of Office clients and you want to disable Office updates manually? If so, you may refer to below information:

Scenario 1. Normally, the configuration (update channel, update automatically, etc.) of Office is controlled by your local admin or IT support, you may ask your admin to explain your requests. If it's allowed to do so, they can help you directly and efficiently.

Scenario 2. If Office 365 is managed by yourself, you can try the below steps to achieve your goals.

1. Revert to a previous version of Office 365.

 

Step 1: Find the Update Channel of Office you are currently using.

*In Word, for example, click File -> Account, on the Product information panel, you can find the detailed version and Update Channel of Office on the About Word panel.

 

Step 2: According to the update channel, refer to the below article to decide a previous version you desired.

Reference: Update history for Office 365 ProPlus (listed by date)

 

Step 3: Download the Office Deployment Tool, open the executable file and choose a location to store the extracted files. Now you get three configuration files and a setup.exe.

*For example, you choose an ODT folder in the Desktop and you will need to choose a configuration file to edit, either the configuration-Office365-x64.xml or the configuration-Office365-x86.xml.

*If you are using a 64-bit OS, you may choose to edit the configuration-Office365-x64.xml in the next step. If you are using a 32-bit OS, the only choice is to edit the configuration-Office365-x86.xml

*In Windows 10, right-click on This PC -> Properties, behind System type, you can find whether you are using the 64-bit OS or the 32-bit.

 

Step 4: Right-click on the desired configuration file and select Edit, choose an application to open the file, then change & add attributes on the content and save the changes eventually.

*For example, you decide to edit the configuration-Office365-x64.xml with the default Notepad application.

*Below is an updated version of the configuration-Office365-x64.xml. I changed the channel from Monthly to Broad and added a version attribute, which is defined to 16.0.11328.20480, then I close the file and save the changes.

*Use "Broad" for Semi-Annual Channel and "Targeted" for Semi-Annual Channel (Targeted).

*The 11328.20480 is a previous version of Semi-Annual Channel, which is found from the above update history article and been chosen as the example in this reply.

Step 5: Download the customization installation package of Office 365 via the Command Prompt application.

a. Click the Start menu and type ‘cmd’, right-click on the Command Prompt application and select Run as administrator.

b. Input the below command to switch from the default C:\WINDOWS\system32 folder to the ODT folder in desktop.

cd C:\Users\hugol2\Desktop\ODT

*The hugol2 is my username, you should change the username to your own.

c. Input the below command to begin to download the installation package of Office 365.

setup.exe /download configuration-Office365-x64.xml

d. Press enter, the cursor jumps to the beginning of the next line immediately, which means the download task started.

*Now you will find a new Office folder appears in the ODT folder, and the size of the Office folder will be about 2 GB after downloading. Right-click on the folder and select Properties to check the folder size.

*The pass of the ODT folder will appear again on the Command Prompt window once the download task is finished.

Step 6: Once the Office installation package is downloaded successfully, this means you are about to succeed -;). Uninstall Office from PC and restart the computer.

Step 7: Install the previous version of Office 365.

a. Repeat the minor steps a) and b) in Step 5.

b. Input below command to start the installation progress.

setup.exe /configure configuration-Office365-x64.xml

 

2. Once the office is installed successfully, open one of the Office applications and click Account, check whether it’s the desired Office version on the Product Information panel and click Update Options -> Disable Updates. In the later, you can check the latest Office updates from the below release notes articles and decide whether you want to re-enable updates (File -> Account -> Update Options -> Enable updates). We always suggest you update Office to the latest version to get the latest feature updates and security updates.

Release notes for Monthly Channel releases in 2020

Release notes for Semi-Annual Channel (Targeted) releases in 2020

Release notes for Semi-Annual Channel releases in 2020

 

If you got any error message during trying the steps above, please reply with the screenshot of the error message so that I can give you further suggestions according to the corresponding situation.

*You can click the Insert image button to upload pictures when you reply.

 

It would be great if you can reply with the content of the edited configuration file, then I can directly have a test on my side.

Thanks for your understanding :).

Best Regards,

Hugo

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Question Info

Last updated September 23, 2024 Views 11,335 Applies to: