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When I opened up my laptop this morning (8/16/14) there was a pop-up on the screen telling me there was an update available for Microsoft Word Starter 2010 and asking me if I wanted to download it. It did not look like the typical Windows or Office update notification. I closed the pop-up and opened Windows update and ran it. There were some updates available, but none that said they were for Word Starter. IS there a new Update for Word Starter or is this someone trying to get me to download a virus?
***Office Product moved to Office 2010 by the Moderator.***
A family of Microsoft word processing software products for creating web, email, and print documents.
Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.
Microsoft has posted a Knowledge Base article describing and explaining this popup and providing a solution. Find it at http://support.microsoft.com/kb/3016799.
Hi everyone,
We heard back from the product group. The dialog is expected for a legitimate Office 2010 starter update. It appears for click to run scenarios where the path is missing a piece of information between the build that the user is running on and the latest available build.
The august update that was pulled is a Windows update, not an Office update.
Thanks!
DK - MSFT support
Thank you, Michael. My main goal was to alert other users to possible dangers of the update pop-up box. I'm really not planning to make this research a full-time endeavour.
I just don't want anyone else to ruin their PC. I'm not trying to start a vendetta against Microsoft; for all its flaws I am satisfied with the product.
Thank you Victoria for that very valuable INFO... Please keep us up to date on your findings.
You know the saying...
If it walks like a duck and it talks like a duck it must be MICROSOFT or is it a DUCK...
Just went to Office Starter to check there for updates.
First thing I noticed in my Programs menu is that it says Office Starter (English). The pop-up says Office Starter - English. A dash not brackets.
There were apparently a couple of 14 October updates to Office 2010 but further investigation reveals that if you enable automatic updating, most of these updates are automatically installed with no input required by the user.
I came to a Microsoft Safety & Security page that describes the update process (copy/paste in new tab)
http://www.microsoft.com/security/pc-security/updates.aspx
<<Pay attention to Windows Update warnings
When you turn on automatic updating, most updates will download and install on their own. Sometimes Windows Update will need your input during an installation. In this case, you'll see an alert in the notification area at the far right of the taskbar—be sure to click it. >>
Notice that Microsoft refers to the pop-up window in the taskbar, far right. That is the usual place I see notifications.
The fake pop-up update is always in the middle of the screen. This is not where Microsoft puts notifications.
Whenever I check for new updates my PC is up-to-date. Therefore, this pop-up is bogus. And, as we have all learned this dubious pop-up has been around since at least August 2010, the earliest report I could find.
I would like to know who is behind this hoax. In the meantime, I am going to disable automatic Office updates to see if the pop-up disappears--I'm betting that I will continue to receive the fake update since users who don't even have Office Starter installed are plagued by them as well.