Can someone explain to me exactly what MS Office Click to Run is?

Title says it all. For some reason I don't understand MS explanation of it. I always thought it had something to do with Ofc 365.
I actually use Office 2021.

It's Office Home and Business which I use (2016 version). Whenever there's an update, Reliability Monitor shows it as click-to-run update.

I don't know what it is or what it does - but if I stop and disable it none of my Office apps will load. So I restarted it.

glasskuter said:

I always thought it had something to do with Ofc 365.
I actually use Office 2021.

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Click-to-Run (C2R) was first introduced with Office 2010 as an alternative to the traditional .msi intaller. I have a C2R install of Office Starter 2010 on my System One.



These may explain it better than MS does.....

Office 2010 introduces a new Click-to-Run installation process based on Microsoft App-V Version 4 streaming and virtualization technology as an alternative to the traditional Windows Installer-based installation process for the Home and Student and Home and Business editions, and as a mandatory installation process for the Starter edition. Click-to-Run products install in a virtualized environment (a Q: partition) that downloads product features in the background after the programs have been installed so that users can immediately begin using the programs. The download process is optimized for broadband connections.

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Traditional software downloads require a complete (and sometimes lengthy) download before the product can be unpackaged, installed and used on an endpoint computer. Click-to-Run streams Office installs over a network, much the same way YouTube streams videos to website visitors. Streaming allows the end user to open and use Office before the entire software suite has been downloaded. If the end user clicks on a part of Office that has not yet been downloaded, Click-to-Run will jump ahead to that part of Office and make it available. Once the entire download is complete and the software has been installed, the end user can run Office offline.

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Thanks Bree - but that seems like a rather large boatload of software to deal with something that gets installed only once. Granted installing Office is a pain (clicking all the appropriate options is tedious to say the least), but how often does anyone do that? Maybe once every 3 - 4 years? I'd rather delete it all and get the disk space back. But it doesn't seem like there is any way to do this and still have the Office apps run.

Hi,
Nickname is click to attack

Basically it is an install method to replace the MSI method

According to techtarget.com Techtarget Microsoft-Click-To-Run, Click-to-Run uses embedded App-V 5 technology to run Office in an isolated environment. This feature allows multiple versions of Office to run on the same computer.

At learn.microsoft.com Office Click-to-Run (C2R) states “Click-to-Run is a new way to deliver and update Microsoft Office to broadband customers. Click-to-Run uses Microsoft virtualization and streaming technologies.”

I have OneDrive Personal, 365 minimal for storage and Office 2016 Pro Plus. This version (Word) is licensed for several more years and the latest update is “Version 2403 (Build 17425.20176 Click-to-Run) Current Channel”. This is the same for all the office apps. This slightly behind MS 365 whose Build is 16.0.17622.41006.

(Personal note, I’d rather own my office for 1 price than rent from MS.)

Regards, Charles

The "Microsoft Office Click-to-Run" process is responsible for updating and maintaining your Microsoft Office applications. It is designed to run in the background and ensure that your Office applications are up to date and functioning properly.

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I’d say just ignore it and let it do its thing?

@glasskuter Click-to-run was installed on both my devices with MS Office Home 2019. I tried disabling ClickToRunSvc, setting it's startup type to Manual, as well as using a batch file to enable the enable the Service before loading an MS Office App, but it didn't work for me. In the end, It generally only utilizes a small amount of RAM, so I've done as @antspants suggested, sublimated my OCD, and just ignored it.

safron said:

sublimated my OCD, and just ignored it

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Just try to think of it as your friend
A minimal guardian angel. A fairy Godmother…
The space or resources you would save I would imagine would be absolutely minimal in my opinion, to a degree that it would make no difference. Also, I believe it is actually an integral part of keeping Office running smoothly.