Here’s a quick command line you can send out to disable the Microsoft Office auto-update functionality. This is particularly useful in environments where you are freezing systems and then pushing out all updates, rather than allowing hosts to automatically install updates:
defaults write com.microsoft.autoupdate HowToCheck -string “Manual”
Note: Autoupdate has now been updated to version 2, so the string for more modern versions of Office is now:
defaults write com.microsoft.autoupdate2 HowToCheck -string “Manual”
Thanks to @seankaiser for the update!
