What Is the Microsoft Office Click-to-Run Service, and Is It Okay to Disable It on Windows?
If you’re an active Microsoft Office user, you may have seen the Microsoft Office Click-to-Run Service in your Task Manager. You might wonder what that service does and if it’s essential for your Windows computer.
Keep reading to get more clarity on the Microsoft Office Click-to-Run Service and whether it’s safe to disable it.
What Is the Microsoft Office Click-to-Run Service?
As per theMicrosoft Office documentation, the Click-to-Run Service is mainly for pushing updates to all Office programs. The Microsoft Office Click-to-Run Service runs secretly in the background and starts acting up whenever your Office suite programs need an update.
All this sounds good, right? Then, why does the question of disabling this service even exist?
In some scenarios, when the update fails to install correctly, the Click-to-Run service might create trouble for you. It can sometimes start consuming more system resources (memory and disk usage) than required! For better clarity, check thisMicrosoft Community postby a user.
Is It Safe to Disable the Microsoft Office Click-to-Run Service?
The Microsoft Office Click-to-Run Service mainly handles the updating part of Office. And in general, it is mainly helpful for Microsoft 365 users. So, should you disable the Microsoft Office Click-to-Run service?
As you’d expect, one of the most significant risks for disabling this service is that your Office programs will no longer receive any updates. In these updates, Microsoft provides security patches and feature updates.
Besides, if you stop or disable the service and try to open any Microsoft 365 program, you’ll likely get a"Something Went Wrong" errorpopup. So, if you’re using Microsoft Office 365 at the moment, the answer is a complete “no.”
But, if you’re using older versions of Microsoft Office where you don’t expect any significant feature updates, or you’re currently using a cracked version (which we don’t recommend, as there areplenty of reasons why you shouldn’t use a pirated Office), disabling the Click-to-Run service is safe. If you want to disable it, keep reading to know the methods.
1. Change Your Office Applications' Update Settings
We recommend tweaking your application update settings before disabling the Microsoft Office Click-to-Run service.
Simply put, whatever Office program you use, you must go to its settings and then change the update settings. We’ll show you how to do it in Microsoft Word, and then you can follow the exact steps in all the Office programs.
Here’s how to access the Update Settings in Microsoft Word:
Ensure you follow these steps for all the Microsoft Office applications on your computer to disable the service effectively. If you skip this for any app, the Microsoft Office Click-to-Run service might sneakily restart after a while!
2. Disable Microsoft Office Click-to-Run Using the Services App
Want to disable it on your computer permanently? For that, you can use the Windows Services app. Remember that once you disable it, you wouldn’t receive any updates for any of your Office programs.
Now follow these steps to disable the Microsoft Office Click-to-Run service on Windows:
If by disabling the service, you are unable to start any office program, please chooseManualfrom the properties (instead ofDisabled).
Microsoft Office Click-to-Run Service, Explained
Hopefully, now you understand the use cases of the Click-to-Run service and whether you should keep it running or turn it off.
If you ask us, we suggest not touching the service if you’re a paying customer of any Office products. On the other side, disabling the service could help free up the load on system resources if you’ve stopped using Office products or switched to an alternative.
Need a free but mighty Microsoft Office 365 alternative? Here are the best office suites to consider.
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