Deployment of Microsoft Office 2016, getting errors due to previous installs

[talksr]

Hi there,

I am trying to deploy Microsoft Office 2016 to our Windows 10 stations in our ICT suite with PDQ deploy.

 

When deploying, if I am logged into one of the computers, I get the following message pop up:

 

We can't install the 64-bit version of Office because we found the following 32-bit programs on your PC:

Microsoft Office Professional Plus 2013.

 

Please uninstall all 32-bit Office programs, then retry installing 64-bit Office.

 

I am a little confused as in the MSP for Office 2016, I have set Remove previous installations to "Remove the following earlier versions of Microsoft Office programmes" to "Remove All".

Is it only looking for older 64-bit versions of Office and not the 32?

 

The 2013 office has been installed on the systems as part of a Group Policy Object domain wide. I have never done it before, but does anyone know if there is a way I can remove this for these particular computers?

 

Thanks for any help on this.

[Rob_D]

Depending on how the GPO is set-up, you might be able to set it to uninstall Office for you.

Otherwise unlink the install GPO and use a script to uninstall it.

 

We used the following script:

xcopy "\\wds\distribution$\Applications\Uninstall Office 2013\Uninstall.xml" "%commonprogramfiles%\Microsoft Shared\OFFICE15\Office Setup Controller\"
"%commonprogramfiles%\Microsoft Shared\OFFICE15\Office Setup Controller\setup.exe" /uninstall PROPLUS /config Uninstall.xml

 

XML file is:

 

I hope this is of some help.

[PD1279]

Just for the sake of clarity - why do you need the 64bit version of Office ? Surely the 32Bit would do (yes it installs on 64Bit Windows just in case you may ask) - this would also allow the installation to continue as it would then remove Office 2013 32bit as the 64Bit & 32Bit cannot be on the same machine.

[Rob_D]

These days, why would you not move on to the x64 version? 32 bit is being depreciated, so you're just pushing the problem down the line.

[talksr]

These days, why would you not move on to the x64 version? 32 bit is being depreciated, so you're just pushing the problem down the line.

 

This was my thought. We used the 32 bit version originally as the systems were on 7 32 bit. But as time has moved on, they have been upgraded to Windows 10 64bit.

Seemed more trouble than it was worth to change back to 32bit.

 

Also, it would then cause issues with other systems as they all get the same start menu layout on Windows 10. If some had 32-bit, they would not get the correct Office tiles.

[Steve21]

It's still recommended to use 32bit office by Microsoft unless you specifically need super big files or a complex project

 

There's many bits that won't work in 64bit office especially things like old access files or plugins that aren't supported

 

Take something like Sage that doesn't support it too, there's a lot of programs that don't still

 

Steve

[PD1279]

As Steve21 says 32Bit Office is still the recommended install unless there is a specific reason for the larger spreadsheets or project integration and there are far more systems that do NOT work with Office 64 hence why Microsoft recommend it.

 

Windows 64bit yes - there is NO need to ever install 32bit Windows again.

 

But Office 64 - no I would still roll out 32bit as no teacher/staff we have would need to open a 2GB project in Office :-) and some add-ins are just plain incompatible

 

Just for note, even Office 2019 comes in both 32bit & 64Bit

Edited August 23, 2018 by PD1279

[Cache]

Admittedly, I did this as a logon script and just went around and logeed onto the computers when I upgraded from 2010 to 2016, however you'll probably be able to modify it for your needs.

 

I based it off this in order to script Offscrub to run and remove all components of the previous version of office and then kick off the Office 2016 install - there were various computers which had partly installed updates which prevented a clean removal otherwise. Using this, every computer completed successfully.

 

Blog post for basis of script: https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/odsupport/2014/11/03/how-to-uninstall-office-2010-and-move-to-office-2013-click-to-run-or-volume-license/

Offscrub: https://github.com/OfficeDev/Office-IT-Pro-Deployment-Scripts/tree/master/Office-ProPlus-Deployment/Remove-PreviousOfficeInstalls

Edited August 23, 2018 by Cache