Why is my computer still using Microsoft Office 2021 after installing Office 2024?

The problem likely runs to far more people than we even know about this from this forum, although I have found angry users on other forums, too. Another issue is that Office 365 is so widely used that only a small group of people would even be interested in stand-alone versions of the product. I, myself, am running a state-of-the-art MSI Titan laptop that handles the heavy lifting of everything from digital art to vast algos in Python, as well as databases that routinely shuttle, both in to and out from, (get ready for this) Excel. I have no desire to have rentware from Microsoft or Adobe, so I need the best of the stand-alone products these companies have to offer.

Microsoft is in an oligopoly — technically, a quasi-duopoly — and, as such, it has no interest in resolving the problems of a small group of end users. That's why this forum has no direct connection to anyone at Microsoft who could solve the problem we're having. We are left with "solutions" being offered by people who know no more than we do. I was appalled at how complicated and definitive some of the solutions were that actually showed fundamental ignorance of the file deployment architecture of the Office 2024 vaporware. No, there were no license files in the empty Office 16 folders, although that gave me a clue regarding what was really going on: Office 2024 doesn't actually exist on my computer, notwithstanding my having downloaded a massive file and endured a long "installation" process after I bought it.

Are we going to sue Microsoft? No, Microsoft's lawyers would turn us into a dot of chicken salad that would get tossed out of court before we could say, "Don't eat me." Are we going to make a big thing of this on social media and make Microsoft do the right thing? No, hardly anyone would care enough to give us even one repost. So, what are we going to do? We're going to come here to fuss in vane and try every new solution offered by an "expert" who really just wants attention.

As I tell my business students, corporations do not fulfill their goal of maximizing shareholder wealth by being good to people; they fulfill that goal by doing what is best for their business. The two are rarely synchronous.

I wish you well and thank you for coming here to join the conversation.

Deleting the registry entries worked for me. I have the LTSC Pro Plus version and I did uninstall Pro 2021. 2024 wasn't working as it kept showing Office Pro 2021. Finally after following your instructions it worked and 2024 now appears as the registered and working version in the About section of my Office App. Thank you!

I will try this, but I remain concerned. If Microsoft Office is merely misidentifying the version of Office I am using, why do the apps still look like Microsoft Office Pro 2021? I have seen screenshots of the 2024 version of the apps, and they do not look like what I see in my version, which remains exactly like it has since I started using the 2021 version several years ago. Again, however, I will try your solution and report back here on the outcome.

It is fixed! Wish I knew what happened to fix it though. Here is my history...

Have a 2 year old laptop with Office Home and Business 2021. I bought a new desktop and never installed 2021. I signed in to my MS account on the new desktop and bought Office Home and Business 2024, downloaded and installed it. Somehow, it always opened as 2021.

I spent about 7 hours on chat and phone calls and never could get a fix. I've installed, uninstalled, deleted registry, deleted keys via the cscript command, tried different install versions, even offline version. It never would get fixed. The last agent after working with me for 3 hours said he would escalate to the Office Team because he felt there must be a bug in the system. He said they would contact me with a fix. I was never contacted.

In the meantime about a week had passed, I ordered a new 2TB SSD for my desktop. It arrived. I cloned the 1 TB SSD that came with the desktop and switched the BIOS to boot from the new SSD. When I opened Word it showed up as 2024! As did all the other Office apps! I doubt the new cloned drive fixed it. I gut feel believe the Office Team found the bug which may have been some kind of issue with the licenses in my MS account and fixed it. Who knows? Bottom line, it is working.

Except I didn't have the desktop version of Outlook that was supposed to be included in this package. Another hour with MS Help and I got that resolved. I tried to use the "new" Outlook that was installed initially but it is useless.