Windows - Software - Uninstall Microsoft Office Professional Plus

What the Office Professional Plus uninstaller does

This Automox Worklet™ removes Microsoft Office Professional Plus from Windows endpoints by detecting the existing install and driving the Microsoft Office Deployment Tool (ODT) through a silent uninstall. The ODT configuration.xml targets the ProPlusRetail product ID, which matches Office Professional Plus Click-to-Run retail installs. Volume-license MSI builds of Office 2016 and Office 2019 Professional Plus register the ProPlusVolume product ID instead, and a volume-license fleet should customize the configuration.xml accordingly before rolling this Worklet into a migration.

The evaluation script reads HKLM:\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\ on 64-bit endpoints, plus HKLM:\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\ for any 32-bit Office install on a 64-bit OS. Any DisplayName matching Microsoft Office Professional Plus flags the endpoint for remediation. The remediation script stages C:\ODT\, downloads officedeploymenttool.exe from Microsoft, extracts setup.exe, writes a configuration.xml with a Remove All="TRUE" block scoped to ProPlusRetail, and runs setup.exe /configure with that file.

After the ODT uninstall returns control, the Worklet removes the entire C:\ODT\ staging directory so no installer payload is left on disk. The process runs as SYSTEM under the Automox agent and requires no user prompts, so the policy is safe to schedule across a production fleet during a migration window.

Why retire MSI Office before a Microsoft 365 rollout

Microsoft 365 Apps for enterprise uses the Click-to-Run installer, which refuses to coexist with an existing Office Professional Plus install on the same endpoint. The blocking error is ERROR_INSTALL_PLATFORM_UNSUPPORTED at the end of a long Click-to-Run download, after the user has already waited 20 minutes. Manually shelling into each laptop to run setup.exe /uninstall ProPlusRetail.OfficeBeforeMigrationConfig.xml, or hunting for the matching MsiExec.exe /X{90160000-...} GUID per build, does not scale past a few dozen endpoints. Tools such as OffScrubO16 and the legacy SaRA uninstall scripts work, but they leave registry remnants under HKLM:\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office\16.0\ that surface as repair prompts the next time Outlook launches.

This Worklet applies the supported Microsoft removal path (Office Deployment Tool plus a ProPlusRetail uninstall configuration.xml) on every endpoint flagged by the evaluation. The next policy run re-checks the Uninstall registry hive, so a reimaged laptop carrying a legacy Office image is caught on the following agent check-in rather than waiting for a help-desk ticket. The activity log records the setup.exe exit code per host, which becomes the artifact the licensing team uses to reconcile ProPlusRetail seats after the migration.

How Office Professional Plus removal works

1. Evaluation phase: The Worklet enumerates HKLM:\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\ using Get-ChildItem and Get-ItemProperty. On 64-bit Windows it also enumerates HKLM:\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\ to catch a 32-bit Office MSI installed on a 64-bit OS. The script filters DisplayName for the literal Microsoft Office Professional Plus and emits the matching subkey path. The policy operator can then see the exact build (Office Professional Plus 2016 vs 2019) in the Automox activity log. Endpoints with no matching key are reported compliant and skip remediation.

2. Remediation phase: The script creates C:\ODT\, downloads officedeploymenttool.exe from the Microsoft download CDN, and runs the self-extractor with /extract:C:\ODT\ /quiet to drop setup.exe alongside the configuration files. It then writes a configuration.xml that declares <Remove All="TRUE"><Product ID="ProPlusRetail"/></Remove> with a <Display Level="None" AcceptEULA="TRUE"/> block, and invokes setup.exe /configure C:\ODT\configuration.xml. After setup.exe returns, the Worklet calls Remove-Item -Recurse -Force on C:\ODT\ so no installer payload remains. The remediation exits 0 on a clean ODT exit code (0) and non-zero on any other code, so policy failures surface in the activity log rather than going silent.

Office Professional Plus removal requirements

• Windows 10, Windows 11, or Windows Server 2016 and later under the Automox agent

• Local administrator context (the Automox agent already runs as SYSTEM, which satisfies this)

• Outbound HTTPS to download.microsoft.com so the remediation can fetch officedeploymenttool.exe

• At least 500 MB of free space on the system drive for ODT extraction and the uninstall scratch area at C:\ODT\

• Microsoft Office Professional Plus Click-to-Run retail (ProPlusRetail) registered with a DisplayName under the Windows Uninstall registry hive; volume-license MSI builds use ProPlusVolume and require a customized configuration.xml

• No active Office processes at run time; pair with a notification Worklet or an after-hours policy schedule so winword.exe, outlook.exe, and excel.exe are closed when setup.exe /configure runs

Expected state after Office Professional Plus removal

After a successful run, Microsoft Office Professional Plus no longer appears in Apps and Features, the matching subkey is gone from HKLM:\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\, and C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office16\ (or Office15\) is removed. Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook from the MSI build will no longer launch. The endpoint is ready for a Microsoft 365 Apps Click-to-Run install through a follow-on Deploy Worklet or your existing M365 deployment policy.

Validate by running Get-ItemProperty HKLM:\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\* | Where-Object DisplayName -Like "*Microsoft Office Professional Plus*" in PowerShell – the call should return nothing. Inspect %ProgramData%\Microsoft\OfficeSoftwareProtectionPlatform\ and the Office Source Engine cache under C:\MSOCache\ to confirm the supporting payload is gone. The C:\ODT\ staging directory must also be absent; if it persists, the remediation exited before cleanup and the activity log will carry the ODT exit code so the operator can re-target the endpoint.

If the endpoint reappears with Microsoft Office Professional Plus after a reimage or a user-driven repair of an older installation media, the next scheduled evaluation flags it again and the Worklet re-runs the ODT removal. That recurring loop is what closes the migration gap across a fleet, so the Microsoft 365 rollout can land on every laptop without an admin chasing each MSI-era endpoint by hand.