How do I disable Microsoft ad in Office 2016/Excel

[Bill_Bright]

RE: Microsoft Office Home & Business 2016.

In the last few weeks, about every 10th time I open an Excel 2016 spreadsheet,  I see a banner ad just below the tool bar that says (see also attachment):

“EXPERIENCE MICROSOFT 365 Keep your files safe, secure, and accessible with 1 TB clout storage. Try Microsoft 365  Start free trial”

There is an X to the far right to remove the annoying ad, but it will return. 🙁

If I wanted Microsoft (or Office) 365, I would have bought that instead of Office Home & Business 2016. And Office is not free! It is not cheap. I didn’t “pay” a pretty penny to get ads in my programs. 🙁

How do I permanently prevent my Office products from displaying these ads?

Bill (AFE7Ret)
Freedom isn't free!

1 user thanked author for this post.

Kathy Stevens

[Kathy Stevens]

We have experienced a similar advertisement while opening the Outlook component of Microsoft Office Home & Business 2016

[Bill_Bright]

Yeah, I saw and “Liked” your other thread on it. Sadly, it became a typical MS bashing session instead of anyone offering suggestions on how to disable it.

Bill (AFE7Ret)
Freedom isn't free!

[anonymous]

Found this:
James2005 Replied on August 18, 2020

I just logged into my Microsoft account and went to Privacy settings. There I saw that a radio button “See personalized ads in your browser” was turned on. I turned it off and the ad disappeared on my Outlook screen. Fingers crossed it is long term.

EDITED html to text: Content may not appear as intended.

[Kathy Stevens]

At this point the Microsoft 365 banner ad is not reappearing in my Outlook 2016.

Unfortunately, I do not remember if I found a way to disable it or stopped on its own.

Good luck in finding a solution.

[Bill_Bright]

Well, not sure this is the same thing as I am seeing the ad in Excel, not my browser. Also, I noticed there are two settings for this. The first “See ads that interest you” I already had set to off. The other, the one you mention, “See personalized ads in your browser” was still set to on. I did disable it. Hurry up and wait now, to see if I get another.

Bill (AFE7Ret)
Freedom isn't free!

[Bill_Bright]

What seems odd to me is it has never appeared in Outlook or Word for me and I typically open them at least once a day. I have only seen it in Excel – which I also open at least once a day. But the ad’s verbiage is exactly the same as those reported for Outlook.

Makes me wonder if the same counter is used in all Office products.

Bill (AFE7Ret)
Freedom isn't free!

[Kathy Stevens]

The EXPERIENCE MICROSOFT 365 banner ad just showed up in our Word 2016.

[Bill_Bright]

Rats! I just got this banner adware harassment in a Word doc too. And yes, this is adware and harassment because I paid for this Word license.

[anonymous]

have a look here : https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/answers/questions/86974/how-do-i-disable-advertising-in-outlook-2019.html

2 users thanked author for this post.

Bill_Bright, Kathy Stevens

[Kathy Stevens]

The banner advertisement for 365 continued to appear in my Office 2016 apps since my last post.

I just turned off the alert as anonymous Guest suggested in Excel by opening, “an excel file>click File>Options>Trust Center>Trust Center Settings>Message Bar>uncheck show policy tip),….” as suggested at   https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/answers/questions/86974/how-do-i-disable-advertising-in-outlook-2019.html  .

We will see if the banner advertisements reappear.

 

[Bill_Bright]

Since my last post, I have seen this ad in Word and Outlook too. 🙁 Following Andy’s guide in that MS post, I went into Outlook and followed the options to Trust Center Settings > Privacy Options > Privacy Settings > All connected experiences and then unchecked the Enabled connected experiences. Now it is a wait and see thing.

I just hope this is not something that must be done in each Office app.

Bill (AFE7Ret)
Freedom isn't free!

[SelfMan]

This information might be of use for you:
“Policy setting for optional connected experiences”
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/deployoffice/privacy/manage-privacy-controls

• This reply was modified 1 month ago by SelfMan.

[Bill_Bright]

We don’t want to manage Microsoft 365 apps. We want our Office 2016 and Office 2019 to stop hounding us to buy Microsoft 365.

Bill (AFE7Ret)
Freedom isn't free!

[SelfMan]

The policies are common for Office 2016, 2019 and 365

this should disable all the “Experience” functionality, but as usual – backup first and test first. I’ve noticed that some Office policy settings do apply better when put in login script.

REM Disable Office “connected experiences” c***

REG ADD HKCU\Software\Policies\Microsoft\office\16.0\common\privacy /v disconnectedstate /t REG_DWORD /d 1 /f
REG ADD HKCU\Software\Policies\Microsoft\office\16.0\common\privacy /v usercontentdisabled” /t REG_DWORD /d 1 /f
REG ADD HKCU\Software\Policies\Microsoft\office\16.0\common\privacy /v downloadcontentdisabled /t REG_DWORD /d 1 /f
REG ADD HKCU\Software\Policies\Microsoft\office\16.0\common\privacy /v controllerconnectedservicesenabled /t REG_DWORD /d 2 /f
REG ADD HKCU\Software\Policies\Microsoft\office\common\clienttelemetry /v sendtelemetry /t REG_DWORD /d 3 /f

• This reply was modified 1 month ago by SelfMan.

[anonymous]

REM Disable Office “connected experiences” c***

… which will disable Help and 72 other useful services:
Connected experiences in Office

[SelfMan]

As I mentioned, backup and test first.

[Bill_Bright]

Well, sadly, changing the Privacy Settings in Outlook, it did not fix the problem in Excel because I got the banner adware in Excel this morning. 🙁

@SelfMan – just looking in my registry and I don’t have any \privacy or \clienttelemetry  Keys or DWORDs or whatever they are. And I sure don’t want to disable more than just those adware banners so at this point in time, I am not willing to dink around in my registry.

Besides, I don’t feel we should have to. In the Privacy Settings in Excel, under Privacy Settings > All connected experienced, I have unchecked “Enable connected experiences”. That should do what it says. But clearly it doesn’t or these banners have nothing to do with “connected experiences”. So anyway you look at this, it is misleading, a bug, or a devious lie and MS needs to fix it.

Bill (AFE7Ret)
Freedom isn't free!

[Alex5723]

Try the settings in Office Trust Center

[SelfMan]

Hi Bill,

these are commands with parameters you can execute in “DOS” window.

REG ADD – creates new entry in the registry key
HKCU\Software\Policies\Microsoft\office\16.0\common\privacy
called “disconnectedstate” with the type DWORD and value 1.
/f just forces a existing value overwrite.

You can go to the provided link where at the end of the article you will find the parameter documentation.

• This reply was modified 1 month ago by SelfMan.

[Bill_Bright]

Not sure what has happened but since the above reply, I have not seen any adware banner ads. However, I note I have been signed out of my MS account since about that same time (I use a local account for W10). I just signed in to post this reply so now, “hurry up and wait” to see if the banner ads return.

Bill (AFE7Ret)
Freedom isn't free!

[Kathy Stevens]

We are still occasionally getting the“EXPERIENCE MICROSOFT 365 Keep your files safe, secure, and accessible with 1 TB clout storage. Try Microsoft 365 Start free trial” banner ad across the entire MS Office 2016 suite of applications.

In our case, Windows 10 was installed on all of our PC while they were offline and so we are not tied Microsoft accounts.

[Bill_Bright]

In our case, Windows 10 was installed on all of our PC while they were offline and so we are not tied Microsoft accounts.

It is not that. My systems were installed with a local account too. And my user account was and still is a local account. That means to start Windows and to log into my username on this machine, I don’t need or use my MS account.

But to access many MS websites and services, you need to log in to Microsoft with a MS account. That is what I meant.

Bill (AFE7Ret)
Freedom isn't free!

[Author]

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