How to Custom Install/Uninstall Individual Office 2016/2019/365 Apps

The traditional MSI (Microsoft Installer) based installation allowed you to install or uninstall individual office products (e.g., Word, Excel, or PowerPoint). But the Office click-to-run (CTR) installations don’t allow installation choices. Click-to-Run is the technology used to install Microsoft 365, and most versions of Office 2013 and newer.

You won’t see the custom install screen in the Office CTR setup. All the bundled apps in the Office Setup package/SKU are installed automatically. Each app shown on the setup screen will be installed.

The CTR setup.exe is a small installer stub that downloads the entire setup files from the Microsoft Office Content Delivery Network (CDN). MSI-based setup packages are usually provided in a DVD or USB flash drive.

Many users wonder how to install or uninstall selected app(s) (e.g., Word and Outlook) while excluding all other products in the suite during CTR installation. So, let’s see how to do custom installation/uninstallation of Office applications in this article.

Custom Install/Uninstall Individual Office 2016/2019/365 Apps

Custom installation or uninstallation of Office 2016/2019/365 product is possible using the Office Deployment Tool and a setup configuration file (XML). The Office Deployment Tool (ODT) is a command-line tool that you can use to download and deploy Click-to-Run versions of Office, such as Microsoft 365 Apps for enterprise, to your client computers. This tool can also be used to download, install, and configure Office on a single standalone computer.

Step 1: Download Office Deployment Toolkit (ODT)

1. Download Office Deployment Tool from Microsoft Download Center.
2. Create a folder on the hard drive where you want to store the Office Setup files — e.g., E:\Office Setup
3. Run the ODT setup file, read and accept the license agreement.
4. In the browse dialog, point to the source folder E:\Office Setup.

Step 2: Create/edit the configuration file (XML)

Using Notepad, create a file named configuration.xml (or any name you prefer) in the “Office Setup” folder, with the following contents:

<Configuration>
<Add OfficeClientEdition="64" Channel="Current">
<Product ID="O365BusinessRetail">
<Language ID="en-us" />
<ExcludeApp ID="Access" />
<ExcludeApp ID="Excel" />
<ExcludeApp ID="Groove" />
<ExcludeApp ID="Lync" />
<ExcludeApp ID="OneDrive" />
<ExcludeApp ID="OneNote" />
<ExcludeApp ID="PowerPoint" />
<ExcludeApp ID="Publisher" />
<ExcludeApp ID="Teams" />
</Product>
</Add>
<Updates Enabled="TRUE" />
<Display Level="Full" AcceptEULA="TRUE" />
</Configuration>

(Reference: Configuration options for the Office Deployment Tool | Microsoft Docs)

Bitness

In the above sample XML file, OfficeClientEdition=”64″ denotes that you want to install the 64-bit version of Office. If you want the x86 version, use OfficeClientEdition=”32″ instead.

Edition

The Product ID used in the above example is O365BusinessRetail. Use the appropriate ID as per your requirement. Here are some commonly used Product IDs for Office 365 installations.

• O365HomePremRetail
• O365ProPlusRetail
• O365BusinessRetail
• VisioProRetail
• ProjectProRetail
• AccessRuntimeRetail

Other than the above, you can use the non-Office 365 product IDs listed on this page:

Product IDs that are supported by the Office Deployment Tool for Click-to-Run

Be sure to use the correct product ID, or else you may face an “invalid product key” error when activating the Office product. For instance, the correct product ID for Office 2016 is “ProPlusRetail” (instead of “O365ProPlusRetail”). For 2019 retail, it’s “ProPlus2019Retail”, and the right ID for 2021 retail is “ProPlus2021Retail”.

Exclude Apps

You can add the list of apps you want to exclude/prevent installing. For instance, you want only Word and Outlook apps from the Office suite, exclude all other programs.

Here’s the full list of App IDs that can be used. Excluded apps won’t be installed.

• “Access”
• “Excel”
• “Groove”
• “Lync”
• “OneDrive”
• “OneNote”
• “Outlook”
• “PowerPoint”
• “Publisher”
• “Teams”
• “Word”

Note: The App ID for “Skype for Business” is “Lync.”

Step 3: Download Office Setup files locally

The next step is to download Office Setup files locally using the ODT’s setup.exe file. Use the following command-line to accomplish the task:

E:\Office Setup\Setup.exe  /download E:\Office Setup\Configuration.xml

Now, the Office Setup package will start downloading in the background. It will be stored in the E:\Office Setup\Office directory.

Couldn't install

We're sorry, we had a problem installing your Office program(s).

Is your internet connection working? Do you have enough free
space on your main hard drive?

Please try installing again after you've checked the above.

Go online for additional help.
Error code: 0-2039 (0)

Wrong syntax:
<  Language ID="en-us" />

The correct syntax is:
<Language ID="en-us" />

Wrong syntax:
<ExcludeApp ID="Access">

The correct syntax is:
<ExcludeApp ID="Access" />

Step 4: Run Office Setup (Custom Install)

The next step is to run the Office setup using the configuration XML file. Run the following command-line:

E:\Office Setup\Setup.exe  /configure E:\Office Setup\Configuration.xml

That’s it. Office setup will now start.

Note that only two icons (Word and Outlook) are visible in the Setup screen because we have excluded all other apps individually, using the configuration file. Compare this with the 1st screenshot in this article.

Here you go! Only the chosen Office apps (Word and Outlook) are now installed.

Launch an Office app, input the license key (for one-time purchase edition) or login to your Microsoft ID (if it’s Office 365 subscription edition) and activate the product.

(Note that you can also activate Office automatically by including the product key in the configuration file.)

How to Uninstall Individual Office Apps

Uninstalling individual Office apps from an existing Office installation can be done using the same setup.exe /configure command-line we saw earlier. In the configuration file, match the edition and bitness of your Office version with the edition of Office currently installed on the computer.

You can check the bitness of your Office version via the About box in each Office app.

In the above example, the edition is Office 365 (64-bit). If yours is a one-time purchase edition, it may be Microsoft Office 2019 Home & Student, Home & Business, Standard, Professional, or Professional Plus. For the complete list of Office 365 and non-Office 365 product IDs (to use in the XML file), check out this Microsoft article:

Product IDs that are supported by the Office Deployment Tool for Click-to-Run

Input the ExcludedApps as desired. The excluded apps will be uninstalled when you run setup.exe using the configuration file. For example, to remove Word, add the following line in the XML file:

<ExcludeApp ID="Word" />

Once the configuration file is ready, run this command to uninstall unwanted Office apps selectively:

E:\Office Setup\Setup.exe  /configure E:\Office Setup\Configuration.xml

That’s it. The excluded apps are now uninstalled.

Likewise, you can easily add/install individual Office apps (custom installation) using the XML file.