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

One of the techs had me create a new user profile and delete the old one. It was a lot of work to get the new profile configured with the apps etc. that I use.

Save yourself the time and trouble.... it did not work.

Ron

Hello - I've been following this thread closely as I too am experiencing the exact same problem (and have done repeated installs/reinstalls/clean installs, even full Windows reinstalls) on 2 separate Win 11 PCs on my home network.

I'm beyond frustrated and annoyed about this, but I have found a couple of additional things that might help Microsoft find the solution here:

• First, I've noticed that this privacy message at the top of the Office apps can just be ignored and closed, with no effect on Office performing. It's irritating as hell to see this stupid privacy message every time you open an Office app, but there doesn't seem to be any impact on Office activation or performance if you just close that message, and keep doing your work.
• Similarly, clicking "Ok" on the "Restart Required" popup that occurs after you open an Office app also seems to have zero impact on activation You'll see the same stupid privacy message the next time you open any Office app, but again, everything in Office still continues working and you remain activated even after restarting.
• what seems to trigger an actual activation error is if you "Sign Out" from your Office account. Once you sign back in, now you get all these activation failures and "issues with your office account", which cannot be fixed by SARA, repair or even fully clean uninstalling/Re-installing Office.

So for the time being, I've found best solution is just ignore the Privacy message and the "Restart required" popups, and keep on working. Annoying as anything, and totally unacceptable, but Office actually seems to work fine with them happening.

Once the Activation issue occurs, (periodically I try signing out to see if the issue has maybe solved itself, etc) I've also found a (painful but sort of effective) fix: If you add a new (local) profile on Windows, then delete your existing Windows profile, and then attach your Windows account to the Local account, Office seems to go back to working fine on the new Profile -- although the stupid Privacy message will start coming up pretty soon again, but now you know just to ignore it and keep working.

Of course this solution requires you to save a back up all your current files and docs to connect the new profile to, and it will cause you to have to reinstall most of the other apps etc that you have on your current profile etc -- so it's really not a good long-term solution.

Hope this helps (someone) a bit, and of course I'm dying to hear about Microsoft's progress in resolving this, or on others' experience getting around it.

As I noted in another post, this looks like the Boeing syndrome, an indifference to quality assurance compounded by strategic distractions like AI. Too many high tech companies seem burdened by executives whose technical knowledge is lacking or dated thereby giving free reign to lower level staff to run rampant pursuing personal ambitions at the expense of the the interests of the` core business.

I sooo agree with you! I am just an ordinary person who uses Office, specifically Word and Excel, to keep track of my personal correspondence and finances. I have been loyal to MS since the beginning. The fixes that are being suggested are way beyond my understanding, let alone capabilities. I just want it to work properly. I don't think that is asking too much. Seems no one at Microsoft knows how to fix the problem. Good thing I didn't waste any money getting in a computer tech to fix an unfixable problem!

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?

Copied and pasted those two lines, and saved them on my pc as a text file. Now, each time this hilarious issue returns, I open command prompt as an admin, paste those two lines, Office is "updated" and everything is back to normal. That is, until the next time my pc is restarted...

Someday someone in Microsoft would find the way to end this thing...