Why does the "Restart Office to apply privacy settings" not go away

That seemed to work.

As a test, going back to Insiders Production Preview brought back the problem.

After that, as a means to satisfy my curiosity, I tried leaving the Insider program. let it re-install production version and then re-enrolling with the Insider Beta version ALSO eliminated the problem.

That is where I will leave it. :-)

Insiders Production Preview? Insider Beta version?

I have no idea what you're talking about. :-) Way above my pay grade, as they say. I just want my Office suite to work to work without the annoying glitches.

That seemed to work.

As a test, going back to Insiders Production Preview brought back the problem.

After that, as a means to satisfy my curiosity, I tried leaving the Insider program. let it re-install production version and then re-enrolling with the Insider Beta version ALSO eliminated the problem.

Perhaps it is the fact that I left the Insiders, run that script and then re-joined?
Will have to test that theory on another machine......

That is where I will leave it. :-)

Dear RennieSchmid

We received a response from a user who was able to get back to normal after rolling back Office to version 16.0.17328.20142. We are currently testing this method, but we have received feedback from a user that it resolved the issue, so we suggest you try it.

1. Close all Office software, search for "Command Prompt" (or "cmd") in the "Start Menu", and right-click the mouse and select "Run as administrator";
2. In the command prompt enter the following code: cd %programfiles% \Common Files\microsoft shared\ClickToRun, and then press Enter;
3. And then enter: Officec2rclient.exe /update user updatetoversion=16.0.17328.20142

17328.20142 is the internal version number of the version you want to install, you can also choose an earlier version. Please refer to this link for the specific version number:

Update history for Microsoft 365 Apps (listed by date) - Office release notes | Microsoft Learn (In English)

We hope you find the above information helpful. Whether or not it works, please let us know by replying. Thank you for your understanding.

Best Regards,

Tracy | Microsoft Community Support Specialist

It appears this method works, but only temporarily — the "restart required" message re-appears, often within a matter of hours, and definitely after the next time the computer is restarted.

Is there any hope at all that MS will provide a fix for this, which seems to be a consequence of the most recent Win 11 update?

I tried rolling back. Same issue. I then rolled forward again to the insider version. Same issue.
I completely de-installed and re-installed...same issue.

I have this issue on 3 different machines, one production version, one preview version and one beta.
ALL have the issue.

Back to you Microsoft. The ball is in your court.

Same thing happening with me!