Show or Hide Office Insiders Button

What the Office Insiders visibility control does

This Automox Worklet™ manages the visibility of the Office Insiders button in Microsoft Office applications. The Worklet scans all user registry hives on your endpoint and identifies the InsiderSlabBehavior policy setting in each user's Office configuration.

The Office Insiders button gives users direct access to enroll in the Office Insiders program, which provides pre-release builds of Microsoft Office. By controlling this button's visibility, you determine whether your users can self-enroll in beta testing or whether they remain on stable, supported versions.

Why control Office Insiders program enrollment

Office Insiders builds contain untested features and may introduce instability. While beta testing helps Microsoft improve products, uncontrolled adoption across your organization can create support burdens, compatibility issues with line-of-business applications, and data loss risks.

This Worklet gives administrators the policy control they need. You can disable the Insiders button organization-wide to prevent unauthorized beta adoption, or selectively enable it for pilot groups testing new features. The Worklet works in coordination with Group Policy if you manage Office channels through GPO, verifying consistent policy enforcement across all management layers.

How Office Insiders button control works

1. Evaluation phase: The Worklet enumerates all user registry hives (SIDs beginning with S-1-5-21). For each user, it checks the InsiderSlabBehavior registry value at HKLM:\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Office\16.0\Common and compares it against the desired state variable.

2. Remediation phase: For non-compliant users, the Worklet creates or updates the InsiderSlabBehavior DWORD value to match your configured setting. If the registry path does not exist, the Worklet creates it before setting the value. Each remediated user account is logged, and the Worklet succeeds once all accounts match the desired state.

Office Insiders visibility requirements

• Windows 10 or Windows Server 2016 and later

• Microsoft Office 2016 or later installed on the endpoint

• PowerShell 2.0 or later

• Administrator privileges to modify registry settings

• Configure the $insiderVis variable: set to '1' to show the Insiders button (default), or '2' to hide it

Expected Office Insiders visibility after configuration

After the Worklet runs, all user accounts on the endpoint will have a consistent InsiderSlabBehavior policy setting. You can verify this change by checking the specific setting this Worklet modifies. Users opening Office applications (Word, Excel, Outlook, and others) will either see or not see the Office Insiders button depending on your configuration.

If the button is hidden, users cannot self-enroll in the Office Insiders program through the application interface. If you manage Office update channels through Group Policy, the Worklet respects those policies and coordinates with them. You can verify the setting by checking the Windows Registry at HKLM:\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Office\16.0\Common\InsiderSlabBehavior for the value 1 (shown) or 2 (hidden).

How to validate show or hide office insiders button changes

1. Run this Worklet on a pilot Windows endpoint and review evaluation output for show or hide office insiders button.

2. Confirm Automox activity logs show successful completion and exit code 0.

3. Verify endpoint state using checks aligned to evaluation script logic, such as New-PSDrive, Out-Null, Get-ChildItem.

4. Validate remediation effects from script operations such as New-PSDrive, Out-Null, Get-ChildItem, then rerun evaluation for compliance.