How To Remove Old Office Versions

[Liese Hittson]

We recommend that you uninstall any previous versions of Office before installing Microsoft 365 Apps. Use the Office Deployment Tool and specify the RemoveMSI element in your configuration.xml file to uninstall Office versions that use Windows Installer (MSI).

We recommend that you uninstall any previous versions of Office, including Visio and Project, before installing the newer version. But, in a few cases, such as for application compatibility testing, you might need to keep a previous version installed for a limited time while you transition to the new version.

The product ID is the Setup ID that is found in the Setup.xml file in the product.WW folder of the installation files for your previous version of Office. For example, the Setup.xml file for Office Professional Plus 2010 is found in the ProPlus.WW folder.

The ID isn't version specific. All versions found on the computer are kept. For example, if you specify VisPro, both Visio Professional 2016 and Visio Professional 2013 are kept. Language resources for those versions are also kept. For example, language packs, language interface packs, or proofing tools.

Only full product removals are supported. For example, if you have Office Professional Plus 2013 installed, you can't uninstall everything except Excel. You either must keep or uninstall the entire product. You can only keep a previous installation of Excel if it was installed as a standalone product, not installed as part of an Office suite, like Office Professional Plus.

Access Database Engine is most commonly included as part of other applications which are interacting with Access data sources, and uninstalling Access Database Engine could impact functionality of these applications. Before removing Access Database Engine, ensure that any applications which require this component are removed or no longer needed.

If the "older" version that you want to remove is different than 4.2 or if you want to have a more recent version than the one you have now, you may consider using Synaptic Package Manager to remove all the versions that you installed (searching 'libreoffice') and then

I always install libreoffice using the .deb files. When I need to remove an older libreoffice version I use Synaptic. Go to Synaptic, search for libreoffice, right click on libreofficeX.y-core (X and y is your older version), click on Mark for Complete Removal, click on the Apply button and it is done!

For Office on OS X, Microsoft provides a binary called "/Applications/Microsoft Office 2008/Additional Tools/Remove Office/Remove Office". When I run it, it says it can't find any versions of office on my computer and won't do anything.

I know MS-Office for Mac puts many different components in various places all over the system and not just within it's own applications folder, so how to I successfully remove Office so I can re-install?

Microsoft maintains that you don't need to uninstall previous versionsof Office before installing a newer release. However, if you areupgrading to Office 2016 and would like to remove Office 2011 first,see How tocompletely remove Office for Mac 2011.

The Office Assistant is a discontinued intelligent user interface for Microsoft Office that assisted users by way of an interactive animated character which interfaced with the Office help content. It was included in Microsoft Office for Windows (versions 97 to 2003), in Microsoft Publisher and Microsoft Project (versions 98 to 2003), Microsoft FrontPage (versions 2002 and 2003), and Microsoft Office for Mac (versions 98 to 2004). The Office Assistant used technology initially from Microsoft Bob and later Microsoft Agent, offering advice based on Bayesian algorithms.

The default assistant in the English version was named Clippit, after a paperclip. Although the name Clippit was used in all versions of Microsoft Office that supported the Office Assistant feature, the assistant became commonly referred to by the public as Clippy, a name which later occasionally bled into Microsoft marketing materials.[1][2][3][4] Clippit was by far the most notable (partly because in many cases the setup CD was required to install the other assistants), which also led to it being called simply the Microsoft Paperclip.[5] The Office Assistant and particularly Clippit have been the subject of numerous criticisms and parodies. In November 2021, Microsoft officially updated their design of the paperclip emoji (?) on Windows 11 to be Clippit.[6]

The Office Assistant was an intelligent user interface for Microsoft Office. It assisted users by way of an interactive animated character that interfaced with the Office help content. It was included in Microsoft Office for Windows (versions 97 to 2003), in Microsoft Publisher and Microsoft Project (versions 98 to 2003), Microsoft FrontPage (versions 2002 and 2003), and Microsoft Office for Mac (versions 98 to 2004). The default assistant in the English version was named Clippit,[1][7] after a paperclip.[8][9]

The Office Assistant used technology initially from Microsoft Bob,[10] and later Microsoft Agent, offering advice based on Bayesian algorithms.[3] From Office 2000 onward, Microsoft Agent (.acs) replaced the Microsoft Bob-descended Actor (.act) format as the technology supporting the feature. Users can add other assistants to the folder where Office is installed for them to show up in the Office application, or install in the Microsoft Agent folder in System32 folder. Microsoft Agent-based characters have richer forms and colors, and are not enclosed within a boxed window. Furthermore, the Office Assistant could use the Lernout & Hauspie TruVoice Text-to-Speech Engine to provide output speech capabilities to Microsoft Agent, but it required SAPI 4.0. The Microsoft Speech Recognition Engine allowed the Office Assistant to accept speech input.[11]

According to Alan Cooper, the "Father of Visual Basic", the concept of Clippit was based on a "tragic misunderstanding" of research conducted at Stanford University, showing that the same part of the brain in use while using a mouse or keyboard was also responsible for emotional reactions while interacting with other human beings and thus is the reason people yell at their computer monitors.[12] Microsoft concluded that if humans reacted to computers the same way they react to other humans, it would be beneficial to include a human-like face in their software.[12] As people already related to computers directly as they do with humans, the added human-like face emerged as an annoying interloper distracting the user from the primary conversation.[12]

First introduced in Microsoft Office 97,[13] the Office Assistant was codenamed TFC during development, with the "C" standing for "clown."[14] It appeared when the program determined the user could be assisted by using Office wizards, searching help, or advising users on using Office features more effectively. It also presented tips and keyboard shortcuts. For example, typing an address followed by "Dear" would cause the Assistant to appear with the message, "It looks like you're writing a letter. Would you like help?"

A small image of Clippit can be found in Office 2013 and newer, which can be seen by going to Options and changing the theme (or Office Background) to "School Supplies". Clippit would then appear on the ribbon.

In July 2021, Microsoft used Twitter to show off a redesign of Clippit, and said that if it received 20,000 likes they would replace the paperclip emoji on Microsoft 365 with the character.[16] The Tweet quickly surpassed 20,000 likes and they then announced they would replace it.[17][18] In November 2021, Microsoft officially updated their design of the paperclip emoji (?) on Windows 11 to be Clippit.[6]

The default assistant in the English version was called Clippit.[8][9] The character was designed by Kevan J. Atteberry.[9][19] Clippit was by far the most notable Assistant (partly because in many cases the setup CD was required to install the other assistants), which also led to it being called simply the Microsoft Paperclip.[5] The original Clippit from Office 97 was given a new look in Office 2000.

The Microsoft Office XP Multilingual Pack had two more assistants, Saeko Sensei (冴子先生), an animated teacher, and a version of the Monkey King (Chinese: 孫悟空) for Asian language users in non-Asian Office versions.[20] Native language versions provided additional representations, such as Kairu the dolphin in Japanese.

The feature drew a strongly negative response from many users.[24][25] Microsoft turned off the feature by default in Office XP, acknowledging its unpopularity in an ad campaign spoofing Clippit.[15] The feature was removed altogether in Office 2007 and Office 2008 for Mac, as it continued to draw criticism even from Microsoft employees.

The program was widely reviled among users as intrusive and annoying,[26][27] and was criticized even within Microsoft. Microsoft's internal codename TFC had a derogatory origin: Steven Sinofsky[14] states that "C" stood for "clown", while allowing his readers to guess what "TF" might stand for. Smithsonian Magazine called Clippit "one of the worst software design blunders in the annals of computing".[28] Time magazine included Clippit in a 2010 article listing the fifty worst inventions.[29]

Although helpful to brand-new users, and although introduced at a time when relatively few people had extensive experience with computers, Clippit was criticized for interrupting users and not providing advice that was fully adapted to the situation.[2]

Clippit is the subject of numerous humorous parodies and references, including internet memes.[2] It has been lampooned in multiple television series, including Family Guy, The Simpsons,[30] The Office[16] and Silicon Valley.[31]

In 2001, a Microsoft advertising campaign for Office XP included the now-defunct website officeclippy.com, which highlighted the disabling of Clippit in the software. It featured the animated adventures of Clippit (voiced by comedian Gilbert Gottfried) as he learned to cope with unemployment and parodied behaviors of the Office assistant.[32] These videos could be downloaded from Microsoft's website as self-contained Flash Player executables.[32]

c80f0f1006