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 the Microsoft 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 this Microsoft Community post by 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” error popup. 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 are plenty 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:

1. Open Microsoft Word and click on File > Account. If you’re already on the dashboard, click on Account from there.

2. Now you will find a dropdown option called Update Options. Click on that and choose Disable Updates from the available options. This will now prevent Microsoft Office Click-to-Run service from automatically starting for no reason.

3. Now follow the same steps in other Office programs too.

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:

1. Press the Win logo on your keyboard and open Services from the Windows search results.
2. You’ll see a long list of different services. Find the Microsoft Office Click-to-Run Service, right-click on it, and select Stop from its context menu.

3. After stopping it, double-click on Microsoft Office Click-to-Run Service name to open the Properties window.
4. In properties, click on Automatic and choose the Disabled option, then click on Apply > OK to save the changes.

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.