Custom install gone?

Actually it is no surprise that the "CTR" installation is smaller INITIALLY. That is the way CTR is designed to work.

Initially, CTR downloads "program stubs" that have enough program code to start the applications and let you start working with them. In the background it triggers the download of more program code.  The idea of the program stubs is to speed up the initial installation time.  In theory, as long as you don't start the previously unused programs the extra code won't be installed.

The forced updates in Office CTR and Windows 10 are both moves by MS to take control from users. They are trying to limit variability in the environment they support, like Apple, or in a 'back to the 1960's/future' return to "green screen"/mainframe computing where the central IT (MS) department had total control over the computing applications and environment.

When 365/2016 went GA, all of a sudden it would no longer install along side of older versions of ANY office applications. Funny thing, the 2016 beta test didn't have that problem, 365/2013 didn't have that problem and 2010 CTR (Starter) didn't have that problem. Heck, when CTR first came out MS advertised that using CTR was a benefit that allowed you to install new trial versions of Office alongside existing 'production' installations.  Now, all of a sudden, we can't do it any more.  Why?

One way to resolve this would be to script the custom installer to make it work like the pre-2016 installer did.  Any WSH experts on here?  I don't necessarily want to learn how to use WSH just for this, but if someone's got plenty of experience with it it'd be a case of downloading and unpacking the custom installer as per BradM's post, throwing up a dialog allowing users to check what they want to install, creating an XML file based on the options, and launching the installer.  I could do that in Python, but that doesn't come preinstalled with Windows...

As a former co-worker of mine used to say, "If they can't get their s**t together, maybe we can get it together for them".

That was the whole reason for not wanting Office365, I'll be wanting to use it while travelling so can't have something that needs a huge background download to get the bits I want to use.  Hopefully installing off physical media (DVD) means it's copied across everything it needs rather than relying on background downloads to do things.

I did lose about 3GB of disk space just from (supposedly) installing standalone Word while %ProgramFiles%\Microsoft Office is only 1.45GB, so whatever it's done it's copied a vast amount of junk across to the hard drive.  %ProgramFiles%\Microsoft Office\root\Office16 shows some files that aren't Word (e.g. excelcnv.exe), but no traces of other bloat, and in particular no trace of Outlook, Skype for Business, OneDrive, OneNote, and all the other rubbish that MS insists on dropping onto your machine.  It's like buying a laptop crammed with unwanted vendor-installed bloatware, the only difference being that you can at least uninstall the vendor bloatware.

Take a close look at your installation disk.  Is it a DVD that is almost full, ie about 3.5 GB or is it only using about 750MB.  The full disk is a full installation file, like a MSI. But, AFIK all 365 installers are just the 700-750MB "stub" that requires the internet downloads to finish the installation.

I was going to say that 1.45 GB for a "full office" installation is a clear indication that you only have a partial click to run installation. But then I just checked my Office 2013 Pro Plus MSI install and it is 1.16GB.  So, apparently my understanding of the size of a full Office installation is wrong. <grin>

Take a look at the 365 Pro Plus version. As I understand it, it does include the full local install right from the start.

Also, with Office 365, even a full year subscription, you have to connect to the internet every 30 days (give or take a few) to verify your subscription status.

Good question, I'd poked around the DVD to see if there was any way to extract/install only the parts I wanted and remember seeing about 1.5GB of cabs and whatnot, but I didn't poke into every subdirectory, and wasn't really paying attention to overall sizes (the DVD is at work so I can't check now).

It's actually not a full install (or at least it better not be!), just Word.  So 1 1/2 GB of disk space for a word processor.  That must be some sort of sign that we need to tear down civilisation and let the ants have a go.

It's a pity WPS Office is still some way behind MS Office in terms of getting all the little details right, that's a 60MB download (yes, that's not a typo, 60MB) for the equivalent of Office.  If the current rate of progress continues, within the next few years MS Office will have become bad enough, and WPS Office good enough, that it's worth making the switch.