How to Uninstall Any Previous Microsoft Office Version with Removal Scripts

Before installing a new version of Microsoft Office on a computer, it is recommended to remove any existing versions of Office. While multiple versions of Office can coexist on the same system, this configuration is not recommended due to the potential for conflicts, especially regarding license activation. In this article, we’ll look at several tools and scripts for automatically removing any previous versions of Microsoft Office from a computer and cleaning up any residual components. These scripts can be used to silently uninstall Office from users’ computers via SCCM, Intune, GPO, or other deployment tools.

Uninstall Any Microsoft Office Version Using the SARAcmd Tool

The Microsoft Support and Recovery Assistant (SaRA) is a diagnostic toolkit for resolving common Microsoft Office issues (including Microsoft 365, Outlook, Teams, etc.). It includes the SaRACmd console tool for completely removing one or all previously installed Office versions.

Now, let’s see how to use SaRACmd to uninstall any version of Microsoft Office from a Windows device:

1. Visit the Microsoft Enterprise version of the Microsoft Support and Recovery Assistant download page to get the latest version of the SaRA package (currently, it is SaRACmd_17_01_3954_000.zip, dated 12/9/2025).
2. Extract the archive to a local folder.
3. Open a command prompt as an administrator and change to the SaRACmd directory: CD C:\Tools\SaRACmd
4. To uninstall all previous versions of Office from the computer, run the following command:
   SaRAcmd.exe -S OfficeScrubScenario -AcceptEula -OfficeVersion All

With the SaRA, you can uninstall only a specific version of Office by specifying it as an argument of the Officeversion parameter. Valid values are All, M365, 2021, 2019, 2016, 2013, 2010, and 2007.

For example:

• Uninstall Office 2019 only: SaRAcmd.exe -S OfficeScrubScenario -AcceptEula -Officeversion 2019
• Uninstall Microsoft 365 Apps (ex-Office 365): SaRAcmd.exe -S OfficeScrubScenario -AcceptEula -OfficeVersion M365

The SaRAcmd tool returns an error code when completed. For example, if the removal is successful, the tool will return a code of 0.

00: Successfully completed this scenario. We recommend you restart the computer to finish any remaining cleanup tasks.
Scenario finished with exit code: [0].

For example, SaRAcmd returned the following error on my computer:

06: Office programs are running. Please close all open Office programs and then re-run this scenario. 
Scenario finished with exit code: [6].

In my case, the removal was prevented because the MS Teams client was set to start automatically. Therefore, you need to close all running Office processes before running the uninstall command. You can kill the MS Office app processes by using the PowerShell Stop-Process command.

Stop-Process -Name winword.exe -Confirm
Stop-Process -Name excel.exe -Confirm
Etc.

Note that SaRAcmd utilizes the OffScrubC2R.vbs script under the hood to remove Office Click-to-Run (C2R) products. This can be seen in the Task Manager by the cscript.exe process, which executes the OffScrubC2R.vbs file from the %UserProfile%\AppData\Local\Temp folder. Therefore, in order to use SaRA, the VBScript feature in Windows must not be disabled.

Remove Existing MSI-based Office Versions using ODT

If you use the Microsoft Office Deployment Tool (ODT) to deploy C2R versions of Office 2024, 2021, or Microsoft 365 Apps on computers, any previous MSI-based Office installations can be removed during the deployment process. To do this, add the RemoveMSI parameter to the XML config file.

Example of an ODT configuration file:

<Configuration>
  <Add OfficeClientEdition="64" Channel="Current" >
  <Product ID="O365ProPlusRetail">
    <Language ID="en-us" />
  </Product>
  </Add>
  <RemoveMSI />
</Configuration>

Use the RemoveMSI parameter to uninstall all previous versions of MS Office (2010, 2013, 2016, and 2019), as well as the Project and Visio apps that were installed using the Windows Installer (MSI).

To uninstall modern Click-to-Run (C2R) versions of Office using ODT, add the Remove directive to the XML file. For example, use this configuration to uninstall Office 2021 LTSC and the Microsoft 365 app:

<Remove All="FALSE">
  <Product ID="Office2021Enterprise">
  <Language ID="en-us" />
  </Product>
  <Product ID="O365ProPlusRetail" />
</Remove>

OffScrub: Scripts to Completely Remove All Office Installations

OffScrub (Office Scrubber) is a set of VBS scripts for automating the removal of previously installed Microsoft Office versions from Windows. OffScrub scripts are known for their ability to correctly remove old Office versions, regardless of their current operability/health. The script can detect and clean all residual components of an existing installed Office version.

Here are the main advantages of using Offscrub to remove Office:

• It supports the uninstallation of all versions of Office, including Click-to-Run (C2R), MSI, and pre-installed Microsoft Office apps in UWP format (Microsoft Store).
• It enables the removal of an older version, even when the original installation files or Office cache are missing or damaged.
• User keys in the registry are not affected.
• Provides complete Office removal, including cases when a regular uninstall is no longer possible.
• Removes legacy settings and all Office products (including Project, Visio, and Visio Viewer).

How can OffScrub scripts be used to uninstall a previous MS Office installation?

I created a separate directory for each version of Office:

set OFFICEREMOVE=C:\tools\OfficeUninstall\
md "%OFFICEREMOVE%\2003"
md "%OFFICEREMOVE%\2007"
md "%OFFICEREMOVE%\2010"
md "%OFFICEREMOVE%\2013"
md "%OFFICEREMOVE%\2016"
md "%OFFICEREMOVE%\O365"

Download and save each VBS file from GitHub to its directory. The following directory structure can be used:

• 2003\OffScrub03.vbs
• 2007\OffScrub07.vbs
• 2010\OffScrub10.vbs
• 2013\OffScrub_O15msi.vbs
• 2016\OffScrub_O16msi.vbs
• O365\OffScrubc2r.vbs

You can get the list of available arguments for any OffScrub VBS script as follows:

OffScrub_O16msi.vbs /?

Microsoft Customer Support Service – Office 2016 MSI Removal Utility
OffScrub_O16msi.vbs helps to remove Office 2016 MSI Server and Client products
Usage:  OffScrub_O16msi.vbs [List of config ProductIDs] [Options]

To ensure that the Office removal script executes correctly on Windows x64 systems when launched by the 32-bit Configuration Manager (SCCM) client, invoke the appropriate cscript.exe version. So, to run the OffScrub VBS on a 64-bit computer, you need to run cscript.exe from C:\Windows\SysWOW64.

You can achieve this using the NativeCScript.cmd script:

@echo off
if "%PROCESSOR_ARCHITEW6432%"=="AMD64" (
"%SystemRoot%\Sysnative\cscript.exe" %*
) else (
"%SystemRoot%\System32\cscript.exe" %*
)

Below are CLI commands to completely uninstall different versions of Microsoft Office:

Removing Pre-Installed Microsoft.Office.Desktop App

Note that Windows 10 and Windows 11 often ship with Microsoft.Office.Desktop.Apps preinstalled. You can remove this Microsoft Store version of Office using PowerShell.

Get-AppxProvisionedPackage -online | %{if ($_.packagename -match "Microsoft.Office.Desktop") {$_ | Remove-AppxProvisionedPackage -AllUsers}}

In Windows, you can use the Get-Package and Uninstall-Package cmdlets to uninstall any application, including Win32, UWP, and MSI apps.

Get-Package -Name "*Office*" | Uninstall-Package

After completely removing all remnants of previous Office versions, you can deploy a new, clean copy of Microsoft Office without worrying about activation issues caused by residual files from previous installations.