Office 365 subscription

Office application Start menu tiles that start Edge is unexpected.

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Unfortunately MS (dis)"improved" the Win 10 start menu making it almost impossible to find the underlying shortcuts for tiles in start menu

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"Ask first" is a good policy when going into unknown territory on your computer

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You are having problems with your computer.

Lets define your starting situation to make sure we are on the same page.

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Assumptions:

You have a Windows 10 Desktop (or laptop) computer.

You have an Office 365 Family/Personal subscription

You have installed 365 on the computer

The Office tiles in Win10 Start menu don't work

A lot of computer problems are the result of mistaken assumptions. You think one thing, the computer "knows" something else.

Or in other words, the "map" you have in your mind does not match the reality of what the computer "knows".

Please confirm my "assumptions" are correct.

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So, even though some of the steps may be redundant or "obvious" please work through them.

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#00 Start by confirming you have a MS 365 subscription associated with your email account. Sign in to the MyAccount site and find confirmation you have 365. https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/manage-your-microsoft-365-subscription-959ac957-8d37-4ae4-b1b6-d6e4874e013f

#0 Restart your computer (a "voodoo" fix that often kills "gremlins". It often "just works", so do it!)

#1 Try doing an Office Repair:

go to Start menu > Settings > Apps

Scroll through the list of installed apps to find "Microsoft 365"

Right click on it, click on "Repair

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/repair-an-office-application-7821d4b6-7c1d-4205-aa0e-a6b40c5bb88b
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Test to try to recreate your problem

#0 Restart your computer (a "voodoo" fix that often kills "gremlins". It often "just works", so do it!)

#2 If Repair didn't fix, have to uninstall and re-install Office

Go to same place, right click, select Uninstall

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/uninstall-office-from-a-pc-9dd49b83-264a-477a-8fcc-2fdf5dbf61d8 

The re-install 365

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/download-and-install-or-reinstall-microsoft-365-or-office-2021-on-a-pc-or-mac-4414eaaf-0478-48be-9c42-23adc4716658

Test Start menu

#0 Restart your computer (a "voodoo" fix that often kills "gremlins". It often "just works", so do it!)

#3 If re-install didn't work have to do a more aggressive uninstall

Use the tool you can download "method 2" in the Uninstall link. This is supposed to nuke everything associated with Office. In theory that should nuke the broken tiles.

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Test again.

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Let us know how things go.

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I learned back in the 70s that with computers, if you don't know what you're doing, DON'T DO IT! ASK!

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You learned well <g>

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Also, they show up in settings – Apps & features. That's where I uninstalled Excel before I stopped and said "well this is weird, these should be gone".

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Would start with uninstalling everything that you can from <Settings> --> <Apps> --> <Apps & Features>

Losing track of what you have showing there but should only be <Office 2016 Pro> and <Microsoft 365> at most. If you have individual apps showing, it means that individual apps were installed

Once everything is gone from <Settings> --> <Apps & Features> can deal with the <Start> menu icons if those are still there after the uninstalls.

What do I see when I right-click on them?

That should be the 1980s, I'm getting too old…

I haven't done anything with Nuance yet, right now I have no office applications at all and will see what happens once I do.

I guess I wasn't clear on my specific question. The start menu SHOWS icons for Excel, Outlook, PowerPoint and Word but when I click on them they open Edge. Weird. Worst-case scenario, I could just get rid of the icons and disregard the question "Why".

Also, they show up in settings – Apps & features. That's where I uninstalled Excel before I stopped and said "well this is weird, these should be gone".

Everything does have uninstalled buttons available so, should I do that? I learned back in the 70s that with computers, if you don't know what you're doing, DON'T DO IT! ASK!