# Microsoft Office endless updates **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [April 2, 2026, 6:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/microsoft-office-endless-updates/1028956 "2026-04-02T06:45:50Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 15\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Tusculan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ecd19e/32.png) [@Tusculan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tusculan)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2026, 6:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/microsoft-office-endless-updates/1028956/1 "2026-04-02T06:45:50Z")
I use MS Office for work and I’m beginning to get fed up with the never ending series of updates. By now they send updates every week. It disrupts my workflow as I need to close all the documents I’m working on (which I prefer to leave open for several days). In the past I thought updates were needed for security. But if you need weekly security fixes, something is very wrong. I suspect they are actually doing this mostly to push new AI stuff through, which I could (or couldn’t?) care less about. Anyone know what’s going on? ---
**Author:** ![Projammer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/projammer/32/559_2.png) [@Projammer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Projammer)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2026, 3:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/microsoft-office-endless-updates/1028956/2 "2026-04-02T15:56:24Z")
1000 known bugs in the app, 1000 known bugs in the code. Patch one out, push the patch out. 1050 known bugs in the code. ---
**Author:** ![Spiderman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spiderman/32/230_2.png) [@Spiderman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spiderman)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2026, 4:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/microsoft-office-endless-updates/1028956/3 "2026-04-02T16:09:21Z")
> [@Projammer](#): > > Patch one out, push the patch out. Then grab a bottle of beer off the wall? ---
**Author:** ![Projammer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/projammer/32/559_2.png) [@Projammer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Projammer)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2026, 7:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/microsoft-office-endless-updates/1028956/4 "2026-04-02T19:01:08Z")
> [@Spiderman](#): > > Then grab a bottle of beer off the wall? That’s usually what happens after lunch on patch Friday. ---
**Author:** ![Spiderman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spiderman/32/230_2.png) [@Spiderman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spiderman)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2026, 7:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/microsoft-office-endless-updates/1028956/5 "2026-04-02T19:06:48Z")
After lunch? After _lunch_??? Yanno you can’t drink all day unless you start in the morning! ---
**Author:** ![Thumper668](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thumper668/32/20803_2.png) [@Thumper668](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thumper668)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2026, 7:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/microsoft-office-endless-updates/1028956/6 "2026-04-02T19:12:15Z")
I can’t get past leaving documents open for several days. 90% of my work is in Office and some of my documents are pretty large. The idea of leaving them open when I’m not actively working on them would cause me as much stress as letting my phone battery get down below 20%. ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2026, 8:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/microsoft-office-endless-updates/1028956/7 "2026-04-02T20:24:55Z")
Yeah, I was going to say that I was able to set both Windows 10 and 11 up so I could defer an update 12-24 hours, which lets me finish my day, put everything away, then let it update. But if you’re leaving stuff open for days…? Not sure what to tell you. ---
**Author:** ![Reply](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/reply/32/15952_2.png) [@Reply](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reply)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2026, 4:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/microsoft-office-endless-updates/1028956/8 "2026-04-03T04:01:34Z")
Do you have to use the desktop versions instead of the web apps (which aren’t as full-featured, but don’t need lengthy downloads/updates)? ---
**Author:** ![Tusculan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ecd19e/32.png) [@Tusculan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tusculan)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2026, 5:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/microsoft-office-endless-updates/1028956/9 "2026-04-03T05:29:10Z")
The reason I have documents open for days on end is that I’m working on multiple projects/documents simultaneously, and if i close them I need to (1) determine which documents I was working on, (2) find the document on my computer, and (3) go back to the specific spot in the dcoument where I stopped (much of my work consists of editing sizeable documents). I hate that when I close Word I have to go through to effort of re-opening all the documents I had open previously (if Word would do this automatically I wouldn’t mind as much to close it). I also often need to cut and paste passages from one document to another, which is another reason to have multiple documents open. Come to think of it, this workflow is probably taken from my paper workflow where I have books/paper open on my desk. I’ll think about whether it is mere inertia that keeps me stuck in this workflow. I use the open documents partly as the list of projects I’m actively working on, and that is probably not the best process. Even then, I’m beginning to resent having to stop working every few days to install an update. It has come to the point that it is easier to click away the update process when it pops up (I’m going to let it run once in a while, though). ---
**Author:** ![engineer\_comp\_geek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/engineer_comp_geek/32/504_2.png) [@engineer\_comp\_geek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/engineer_comp_geek)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2026, 7:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/microsoft-office-endless-updates/1028956/10 "2026-04-03T07:57:43Z")
You can disable updates for Office, assuming that your company hasn’t disabled that in their policy settings. Click on Account (lower left on Word) and then select Update Options (roughly in the center of the page). I don’t think there is a way to set the update rate, but you can enable or disable automatic updates from there. If all of the documents that you work on are generated by you then it’s probably fairly safe to disable automatic updates. If you routinely get documents from other folks then it’s not so safe. If you do disable updates, you should probably periodically update Office on your own. ---
**Author:** ![Tusculan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ecd19e/32.png) [@Tusculan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tusculan)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2026, 8:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/microsoft-office-endless-updates/1028956/11 "2026-04-03T08:23:51Z")
Thanks for the information. In fact I have auto updates disabled for quite some time; the problem currently is that the update program pops up once every few days to ask me to update manually. ---
**Author:** ![Steven\_G](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steven_g/32/5080_2.png) [@Steven\_G](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steven_G)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2026, 8:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/microsoft-office-endless-updates/1028956/12 "2026-04-03T08:41:46Z")
FILE, OPEN should list all recent documents. One opened, SHIFT-F5 takes you to your last edit/reading place ---
**Author:** ![Tusculan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ecd19e/32.png) [@Tusculan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tusculan)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2026, 12:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/microsoft-office-endless-updates/1028956/13 "2026-04-03T12:01:38Z")
Yes, but it lists the ones I did _opened_ recently, not the once that were _open_ when it was closed. If I have a document open for a long time, it won’t be in that list. I didn’it know about the Shift-F5 trick, thanks, I’ll try it out! ---
**Author:** ![Llama\_Llogophile](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/49beb7/32.png) [@Llama\_Llogophile](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Llama_Llogophile)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2026, 12:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/microsoft-office-endless-updates/1028956/14 "2026-04-03T12:40:12Z")
Previous thread about app updates being really frequent: > [@Do apps really need to update so often? I call BS](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-apps-really-need-to-update-so-often-i-call-bs/996980): > > After installing an IOS update, I discovered that Apple took the liberty of changing my settings to allow apps to update automatically. Not only did this cause a couple of apps to become useless to me because of changes I don’t like, it’s shown me something else: I have downloaded 23 apps on my iPad. Today, three days after I stopped the device from automatically updating apps, 14 of them supposedly need to be updated again. This is getting out of hand. I realize that users don’t see behind th… ---
**Author:** ![WolfpackJeep](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpackjeep/32/2921_2.png) [@WolfpackJeep](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WolfpackJeep)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2026, 9:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/microsoft-office-endless-updates/1028956/15 "2026-04-04T09:47:14Z")
My “favorite” Office bug at the moment: after an update, sometimes I get a message that pops up after I open an app that informs me I need an Office 365 subscription to continue, but won’t let me sign in. Force quitting and reopening seems to fix it. (This is an enterprise-level subscription; I have known one instance of a software subscription expiring because someone at corporate forgot to pay.) And because my work computer falls under corporate IT policies, I have no control over settings other than deferring updates by 8 hours. I too leave documents open for days, since I’ll often have to stop working on a report to go take care of something else. Word is generally good about reopening everything automatically, I just have to make sure I’m working with the original document and not a local copy.