Office 2016 - How to remove individual apps?

I purchased the full version of Office 2016 Pro from the Home Use Program. I did the standard click-to-run install, and I never got a chance to select which apps to install. Trying to uninstall or "configure" afterwards only gives the option for complete uninstall.

I read a few items on here, and thought using the MS custom deployment file would fix it, so I altered the .xml file and the install ran and only installed the programs I wanted. However, as soon as the activation popped up, I put in my key, and it gave a "wrong key for this version" error, and then proceeded to automatically install the entire version again.

Are there any work arounds? I really only want Word, Excel and Powerpoint. Everything else is worthless to me.

Solution 1:

As dxiv mentioned,

There is however an Office 2016 Deployment Tool which is supposed to allow full customization...

The Office 2016 Deployment Tool allows for customization of which apps you would like to install. It also offers a way to uninstall apps that you no longer want (which should be helpful to those who have already installed all of the apps).

When you download the tool, it will ask for a location to extract files, and will extract a setup.exe and a configuration.xml file. You can edit the xml file to specify which apps you want to remove.

I found this page to be particularly helpful in setting up the configuration.xml file to remove certain apps. It also explains how to use the files:

Then you just have to run the Office Deployment Tool and use that configuration.xml file. For example, users can run the following command from an elevated command prompt on their computers:

\\server01\share\setup.exe /configure \server01\share\NoAccessInfoPath.xml

where:

• \\server01\share is the network share (in this example) that contains the Office Deployment Tool and the customized configuration.xml file (in this example, NoAccessInfoPath.xml).
• Setup.exe is the Office Deployment Tool executable file.
• /configure is the Office Deployment Tool command that is used to perform an installation.

Many of the fields in the xml file are optional. I set up a configuration file like the one below to uninstall all the apps except Excel, PowerPoint, and Word.

<Configuration>

  <Add>
    <Product ID="O365ProPlusRetail">
      <Language ID="en-us" />
      <ExcludeApp ID="Access" />
      <ExcludeApp ID="Groove" />
      <ExcludeApp ID="InfoPath" />
      <ExcludeApp ID="Lync" />
      <ExcludeApp ID="OneDrive" />
      <ExcludeApp ID="OneNote" />
      <ExcludeApp ID="Outlook" />
      <ExcludeApp ID="Publisher" />
      <ExcludeApp ID="SharePointDesigner" />
      <ExcludeApp ID="Visio" />
    </Product>
  </Add>

</Configuration>

Solution 2:

There is no out-of-the-box way to selectively un/install Office 2016 apps. From Your top questions about Office 2016 answered:

7. Can I install a subset of the Office 2016 applications?

No, the ability to selectively install individual applications is not available with Office 2016. The vast majority of customers prefer the full installation of all of the Office apps so they are assured that they have the ability to open, view and edit any document they may need. We will continue to evaluate feedback on this topic.

There is however an Office 2016 Deployment Tool which is supposed to allow full customization of the install options:

Using the Office Deployment Tool, an administrator may:
...
- Configure which products and languages to install
- Remove Office Click-to-Run products

Solution 3:

This is actually a lot easier now so here is the 2019 answer:

1. Go to https://config.office.com/ and choose the applications you want to install and also any other settings you want to configure. Once you're done click finish then export. This will download a configuration.xml file.

2. Go to https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=49117 and download the office deployment tool. Once its downloaded pick a temporary folder to extract the files to.

3. Copy the configuration.xml you made in step 1 to the temportary folder.

4. In the temporary folder, shift + right click to open a powershell window, then run this command: .\setup.exe /configure .\Configuration.xml and it should install!

See-Also: https://www.reddit.com/r/Office365/comments/8dni9x/anyway_to_remove_another_office_365_apps_or_only/

Solution 4:

This answer is specifically for users using the Home subscription (or "Home Premium" subscription ... whatever it is called by MS).

1. Download the Office 2016 Deployment Tool. You must use the setup.exe file contained in this download. On other channels, such as downloading from office.com, the setup.exe file ignores the config.xml file.

2. Save the following XML to config.xml beside setup.exe:

   <Configuration>
       <Add OfficeClientEdition="64">
       <Product ID="O365HomePremRetail">
         <Language ID="en-us" />
         <ExcludeApp ID="Access" />
         <!--<ExcludeApp ID="Excel" />-->
         <ExcludeApp ID="Groove" />
         <ExcludeApp ID="Lync" />
         <ExcludeApp ID="OneDrive" />
         <!--<ExcludeApp ID="OneNote" />-->
         <ExcludeApp ID="Outlook" />
         <ExcludeApp ID="PowerPoint" />
         <ExcludeApp ID="Publisher" />
         <!--<ExcludeApp ID="Word" />-->
       </Product>
       </Add>
       <Updates Enabled="FALSE" />
   </Configuration>
   

3. Run setup.exe -configure config.xml .

To verify the XML file is working, the setup will only show icons of the selected programs:

That said, my personal advise is to use Office 2010. License keys can still be purchased online. It is cheaper as you don't have to pay the subscription fee yearly, and the "new" version of Office is not necessarily better anyway.