Desktop Office vs Microsoft Store Office

Background

There are two approaches to installing Microsoft Office applications on your computer.

  1. Some computers feature Microsoft Office pre-installed by the vendor. In certain cases, this installation is completed with a so-called ‘Microsoft Store’ version of Office.

  2. The second type is installed manually by yourself, your IT administrator, or your computer vendor. This is known as ‘Office Desktop’, or ‘Click-to-Run Office’.

This article is about problems with the former type, which we will refer to as ‘Microsoft Store Office’.

Problems with Microsoft Store Office

Microsoft Store Office suffers from several documented issues including performance impairments and incompatibility with third-party add-ins. Indeed, Microsoft stopped offering this type of Office in Spring 2019 as a result of these kinds of problems. Today, when it comes to local installations, Microsoft only offer ‘Office Desktop’.

OMBEA Response is one add-in that can suffer from incompatibility with Microsoft Store Office. The most likely symptom is that when you launch OMBEA, you receive a message informing you that Microsft PowerPoint is not installed.

The Fix

The only reliable workaround for any incompatible add-ins, like OMBEA Response, is to remove Microsoft Store Office and replace it with Office Desktop.

Before you proceed

Before you do this, you should check if you have Microsoft Store Office.

  1. Start Microsoft PowerPoint, Excel, or any other Office application.

  2. Click File>Account.

  3. If you have Microsoft Store Office, you will see it written next to the version number. For example, it will read ‘Version 1901 (Build 11231.20174 Microsoft Store)’.

Assuming you have confirmed you have Microsoft Store Office, proceed with the steps below. If you do not have Microsoft Store Office, but are still struggling with OMBEA Response, please contact our support team.

Steps

There are three parts to this process:

  1. Uninstall Microsoft Store Office.
  2. Download and Install Desktop Office.
  3. Check that you now have Desktop Office in place

1. Uninstall Microsoft Store Office

  1. Assuming you have confirmed you are using Microsoft Store Office, on your Windows computer go to Settings>Apps. (Older versions of Windows will require you to go to the Control Panel).
  2. Find the Microsoft Office application in the list and click the button to Uninstall.

2. Download and install Desktop Office

  1. In a web browser, go to account.microsoft.com
  2. Sign in to your Microsoft account.
  3. Go to Office 365 Home>Installs and click Install Office.
  4. Follow the prompts to complete the installation.

3. Check that you now have Desktop Office in place

  1. Start Microsoft PowerPoint, Excel, or any other Office application.

  2. Click File>Account from the menu on the left.

  3. Assuming you followed the steps above, you will now see that your Office ‘build’ includes the phrase ‘Click-to-Run’ rather than ‘Microsoft Store’, as it did before.