There is a way to force the Microsoft 365 Office apps to half-yearly feature updates instead of the usual monthly changes.
Microsoft Office 365 for consumers and small businesses (Personal, Family and other plans) automatically updates each month with new and changed features. Some are minor but others are big and important. That’s OK for most people. The updates don’t significantly change the way Word, Excel, PowerPoint etc works so a lot of people don’t even notice them.
Many people prefer stable and unchanging software. This understandable and rational choice is something Microsoft either doesn’t understand or prefers to ignore. To Microsoft ‘new and changed’ means ‘good and needed’ without question.
There are exceptions like Excel users confronted with #SPILL errors when dynamic arrays were introduced. PowerPoint customers seeing Designer suggestions appearing without warning or asking. Sometimes the changed feature will break a feature you need … thankfully this doesn’t happen often.
Force Microsoft 365 to six-monthly updates
Here’s how to force Microsoft Office 365 for Windows to only update features every six-months. The Semi-Annual option has always been available to volume licence customers but isn’t directly available to consumers without a little trickery.
Update: this tip might not work as it used to. Microsoft might have changed the software so consumer Microsoft 365 customers can’t switch to the Semi-Annual channel. If that’s the case, Microsoft is being petty and ignoring the legitimate wishes of paying customers.
What is Semi-Annual Channel?
Microsoft 365 Semi-annual is a more conservative approach to software updates.
Office apps are only updated with new and changed features twice each year, from the second Tuesday of January and July.
There are still monthly updates but those are for security patches and bug fixes only.
Compare that to the usual monthly “Current Channel” which puts out feature changes plus bug fixes every month.
What Office channel do you have?
Start by confirming which Microsoft 365 update schedule your software is on. Microsoft calls this the ‘Channel’ but the names of the channels have changed (too much) over the years.
Go to any Microsoft 365 for Windows app, File | Account and look for the ‘About …’ on the right side.
Look for the …. Channel. Above that is the Office Insider section which should just be an offer to ‘Join the Office Insider program’ or a notice of which Insiders channel you’ve selected.
Most users will have ‘Current Channel’ which means monthly feature updates.
We want to change to the Semi-Annual Channel.
How to change channel – Microsoft Office – not TV
Close down all Office programs. This isn’t strictly necessary but seems prudent when making such a major change.
Start a Command Prompt / Terminal box with Administrative access. (vital!)
Change to the folder with the program we need, OfficeC2RClient.exe
cd C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\ClickToRun
Then switch to the Semi-Annual Channel, called SemiAnnual – no hyphen.
OfficeC2RClient.exe /changesetting Channel=SemiAnnual
BE CAREFUL — OfficeC2RClient isn’t very helpful. There’s no confirmation message of commands – right or wrong. If you mistype a command, there’s little or no chance of an error message.
All current options for Office 365 channels is a full list of the choices in the Channel= parameter.
Once you’ve changed the setting, force Office to update:
OfficeC2RClient.exe /update user
This command will start the familiar Office update system which will download and update your software. Be a little patient, the Office update screen takes a few moments to appear.
Wait while Office updates itself.
Once ‘Downloading Office updates’ is completed, open up an Office program and return to the File | Account | About … and you’ll see something like this:
Semi-Annual Enterprise Channel with new features is released on the 2nd Tuesday in January and July.
General and security updates, if needed, are released once per month on the second Tuesday.
Change back to the Monthly channel
If you decide to switch back to the default Monthly or Current software updates, repeat the process but use a different parameter:
OfficeC2RClient.exe /changesetting Channel=Current
All current options for Office 365 channels
The latest Office ‘Insiders’ names changes
New Outlook Dark Mode feature and other Insiders news
