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How to revert to an earlier version of Office 2013 or Office 2016 Click-to-Run

Applies to: Office Home and Business 2013Office Home and Student 2013Office Professional 2013 More

Summary

By default, Click-to-Run installations of Microsoft Office 2013 or Office 2016 are configured to automatically update your Office installation when new updates are made publicly available. Occasionally, you may have to revert to an earlier version of an Office 2013 or Office 2016 Click-to-Run installation. For example, an automatic update may introduce unexpected behavior by one of your Office applications. In this case, you may want to revert to the previous version until a new version is released that addresses the issue you experienced.

This article provides a list of recommended steps to revert to an earlier version of an Office 2013 or Office 2016 Click-to-Run installation.

More Information

This section discusses some considerations that you should take into account before you revert to an earlier version of an Office Click-to-Run installation.
 

Consider the severity of the issue

Before you decide to revert to an earlier version of an Office Click-to-Run installation, you should weigh the severity of the issue that you’re experiencing against the benefits of having the security, performance, and reliability improvements that are included in the latest Click-to-Run update.
 

Revert to the previous version of Office Click-to-Run

Follow these steps to revert to the previous version of Office Click-to-Run.

Important The Office Click-to-Run installation is streamed from the Internet. Make sure that your connection to the Internet is reliable and persistent.
 

Step 1: Set a reminder to enable automatic updates at a future date

Before you revert an Office Click-to-Run installation, you should disable automatic updates. To make sure that you don’t miss future updates, set a reminder to manually check for future versions. When a new version becomes available, and if the new version doesn’t exhibit the same issue that you experienced earlier, you should re-enable automatic updates.

Create a reminder to re-enable automatic updates. You can do this in Microsoft Outlook, on Outlook.com, or by using another application that has a calendar.

For more information about Office Click-to-Run updates, see the following articles:

Microsoft Office 2013 Click-to-Run update

Microsoft Office 2016 Click-to-Run update
 

Step 2: Install the previous version of Office Click-to-Run

To install the previous version of Office 2013 Click-to-Run, follow these steps:
 

  1. Determine and note the previous version number. Use the following Microsoft website to find the update version that is previous to the current version:
     

Microsoft Office 2013 Click-to-Run update 

Microsoft Office 2016 Click-to-Run update

  • Determine the bit level of the operating system. For more information about how to do this, click the following article number to go to the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:
     

827218 How to determine whether a computer is running a 32-bit version or 64-bit version of the Windows operating system

  • Open an elevated Command Prompt window. To do this, click Start, type cmd in the Start Searchbox, right-click cmd.exe, and then click Run as administrator.
  • At the command prompt, run one of the following commands:

    For an Office 2013 installation in a 32-bit version of Windows:
cd %programfiles%\Microsoft Office 15\ClientX86

For an Office 2013 installation in a 64-bit version of Windows:

cd %programfiles%\Microsoft Office 15\ClientX64

For an Office 2016 installation:

cd %programfiles%\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\ClickToRun

Tips On 64-bit version of Windows, you can install Office 32-bit or Office 64-bit. However, 32-bit is more compatible. For more information, see Choose the 32-bit or 64-bit version of Office 

  • Run the following command:

    For Office 2013
officec2rclient.exe /update user updatetoversion=15.0.xxxx.yyyy


For Office 2016

officec2rclient.exe /update user updatetoversion=16.0.xxxx.yyyy 


Notes 
 

  • In these commands, 15.0.xxxx.yyyy or 16.0.xxxx.yyyy represents the full version number that you noted in step 1. 
    • Because of recent changes, we refer to “version” as the 4-digit year/month identifier, and “build” as the full format (for example, 16.0.xxxx.yyyy). Therefore, the updatetoversionparameter uses the product build in Office 2016. For more information about the differences between versions and builds, see Version and build numbers of update channel releases.
  • When the repair dialog box appears, click Online Repair.
  • Click Repair, and then click Repair again.

    Note If you are prompted to activate Office again, enter your Microsoft account and password. This step does not add your computer to your account a second time.
     

Step 3: Disable automatic updates for Office Click-to-Run

This step is very important. The repair process re-enables automatic updates. To prevent the newest version of Office Click-to-Run from being automatically reinstalled, follow these steps:
 

  1. Start Outlook.
  2. Click File, and then click Office Account.
  3. In the Product Information column, click Update Options, and then click Disable Updates.