This step works well to remove Office 2003 components and some of the newer components using standard methods.
When these are left behind, the system still downloads ALL of the updates for the full suite (including service packs) so I prefer to perform a rip and replace of the Office suite.
You “CAN” upgrade Office in-place without removing previous suites, however I always run into legacy shared components that get left behind.
Be sure to add a custom Task Sequence variable as indicated in the screenshot above so you can use that to re-install the software later. First off, create a group (generally via WMI query or a file check) to detect and remove each application. The next section will contain various scripts and command lines that we’ll use to remove Office-Dependent products and Office itself.
This package will consist of detection scripts, Office Scrub scripts and any other custom code used for your overall upgrade process. (If you need assistance with this, there is plenty of guidance here and here)īefore we get going, we need to create a new package called “Office 2016 Upgrade Files”.