Microsoft is Trying to Protect You...from You.

I installed Office 2016 on one of the VMs I run on top of my main desktop system the other day, and it installed EVERYTHING.  This is the Pro Plus Retail version I purchased, so it has a whole lot of stuff included with it, from the basics like Word, Excel, and PowerPoint, to Access, Publisher, Outlook, Skype for Business, and OneDrive for Business.  All installed without much interaction with me, and certainly without requesting my input.

That's where I take issue, though.  I don't need a whole lot of stuff on this VM, I just want to be able to get after some of the features that aren't quite at that level in LibreOffice.  So I started doing some research.

The answer Microsoft gave to the question of removing unwanted features and applications in Office 2013 & 2016 is found here.  I'll save you the trouble, though, because this is all it says:

"In Office 2016 and Office 2013 you can’t custom select which Office applications you want to install. However, you can delete shortcuts to applications you don’t plan to use.

"Also, you can only install Office on the system drive where your operating system is installed. That’s usually your C: drive."

Delete the Shortcuts.  Seriously?

It then goes on to state that you purchase stand-alone Office Applications to suit your needs.  What a bargain.

I started thinking about why Microsoft might have been designed this as it is.  I believe they're trying to protect their users from specific actions which might make their products less secure, as well as ensuring that the feature is there as soon as the user says, "Boy, I wish I had something that would do this for me."  

But applications like Skype are highly-targeted by vulnerability analysts (both for the benefit of the public and criminals), so forcing it to be part of the attack surface is antithetical to one of the reasons I believe they remove the choice.  If they want to protect users, they should offer the choice.

Software security seems to be a major push for them over the last several years (along with open source, incidentally).  Anyone else thinking this change in heart about open source and push to secure more by default have something to do with the departure of Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer?  Just thinking out loud...

This precludes advanced users and professionals from installing only what they need or want.  Skype for Business?  I don't need that on my VM.  I don't need OneDrive for Business or even Outlook.  So, what are my options?

Well, if you're using Office 365, there is a tool by Microsoft called the Office Deployment Tool (ODT) that makes customizing your O365 installations across an enterprise relatively painless.  But I don't have O365...I've got Office 2016.  And I've been unsuccessful after a couple of hours of trying to make ODT work for my installation, something it promises to be able to do.  

So, this may be an ongoing blog.  Stay tuned . . .

A Note on my ODT Woes 

The problem I see is less-than-adequate documentation resources for the non-cloud versions of Office for this tool.  There are places where the documentation indicates that you can learn more about this feature or tag for the configuration file by going to some other page in Microsoft's web-world.  When that page is viewed, it gives largely the same information as the previous page, and that if you want more information you should go back to the page you were previously on.  Great job, Redmond.