If you’re currently an Office 365 subscriber using Office 2013, you might have noticed a pop up “ad” in your system tray notifying you that your upgrade to Office 2016 is ready. So, if you’re looking to get rid of the “ad” we have some good news, and some advice on how to permanently ditch the notification (via Mary Jo Foley/ ZDNet.)
According to Mary Jo, the pop-up “ad” has three available options: “upgrade,” “later,” and “see what’s new.” Clicking “later” will dismiss the “ad” but will not permanently get rid of it. Clicking “upgrade” on the other hand will guide you to upgrading and installing Office 2016, which may or may not be free based on your actual Office 365 subscription plan. And, as is expected, clicking “learn more” will redirect you to this website which explains what is new and changed for Office 2016 for Office 365.
Microsoft issued the following statement with advice on how to turn off the notification:
The notification is meant to provide existing Office 365 subscribers who are using an older version of Office an easy way to upgrade to Office 2016. The team is actively working to identify the right frequency and are also evaluating ways to make adjusting the notification simple based on customer feedback. In the meantime, customers can turn off the notification by first clicking here. Then, in the File Download dialog box, click Run or Open, and follow the steps in the fix wizard
So, if you want to get rid of the “ad” you should download the easy fix file, and run it, then follow the files in the wizard. The fix will not affect your subscription, as Microsoft will continue to support most versions of Office until at least 2017, 2020, and 2023. Once you have downloaded and run the file, let us know if it has worked for you by dropping us a comment below.
