Has MS wiped Office 2010 Home and Student off our PC?

My wife's Dell PC had until yesterday, our fully working and paid for original original copy of 2010 Home and Office. She said she could not open Excel and was getting an error message. I had a look and after much searching found that the whole suite had gone. I found an AI article about reinstalling and using Control Panel uninstall to repair it. However it was not there to repair, I was asked if I wanted to delete the reference to it! Everything was gone; Excel, Word, Powerpoint and Onenote.

I checked on the Office 14 folder which was virtually empty, the contents did not even get to the bottom the screen, whereas mine goes on for pages (Office 2010 Pro) I do not understand why this should have been removed. The CD was original and belongs to us. I could not even reinstall the whole program as what ever I tried- failed.

Any suggestions as to why and what, if anything can we do about this?

Maybe MS switched if off with no warning or time of grace? Will they do the same to my 2010Pro installation? My wife is our clubs treasurer and uses Excel every day. Do we have to install MS 365 and pay the subscription? Being pensioners we are not tech savvy and only want the basics of Excel and Word. We are to old to start learning new programs and updates and upgrades usually mean more complications and more confusion!

I have done so much reading I am rather lost. I also read that 365 may be phased out anyway!

Some of your expert guidance would be very much appreciated here, as I feel MS has just stolen a product that we purchased from them. I am also very concerned that the same may happen to my Office 2010Pro.

Suggest you have a read of this article -

Why was my office 2010 removed from my computer after an update - Microsoft Q&A

Hi RFS.
Thanks for the link, I do not have a 365 update suggestion or free upgrade. I have tried to reinstall using the original media (CD) and I still have the original product key but cannot reinstall.

From my past experience, if you mix two different versions of Microsoft Office you have problem installing or activating. For example since you now have Office 365 you cannot install properly or activate Office 2010. Go to Settings -> Apps -> Installed Apps and look all the list carefully. Uninstall everything related to Office 365 or Office 2010. Also uninstall stand-alone versions like OneNote, Office one-click and others. Restart the computer and try to install Microsoft Office 2010 from the CD-ROM. Remember to right-click Setup and select Run as Administrator to grant the required access rights to copy the files and modify Registry. After a successful installation open Word or any other application and activate Office 2010. If it doesn't activate automatically there should be the option to call Microsoft and activate by phone.

Trapperr said:

Maybe MS switched if off ...? Will they do the same to my 2010Pro installation?

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If it's any encouragement, I doubt this is what happened. My Windows 11 is fully up-to-date and my MSOffice 2007 is still all there and functioning correctly.

Trapperr said:

I checked on the Office 14 folder

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I have to look in the x64 & the x86 folders - for you, those would be:-
C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office14
C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Office\Office14
but this might not apply to Office 2010.

There are several Office 2010 users in the forum so hopefully one of them will come along and provide better support than I can.


Best of luck,
Denis

Trapperr said:

cannot reinstall

Click to expand...

Exactly what happens when you try?
And did you check that Settings, Apps, Installed apps list or Control panel, Progs & features for all listed MSOffice installations?


Denis

I am using Home and Student 2010 without incident on Windows 11 Pro. Knock on wood.

My relevant folders:

Program files/Microsoft Office/Office 2014: 1 folder; 23 files; 6.43 mb

Program files (x86)/Microsoft Office/Office 2014: 30 folders; 526 files; 406 mb

I last knowingly ran Windows Update on September 8.

My installation was from Microsoft SKU 79G-02144, a 3 pack retail license in optical disc form purchased in 2013. I rebuilt in January 2026 with a clean install of all applications and had no issues at all with activation.

Same problem reported in
Win10 Update Removed MS Office from my PC- TenForums


Denis

Personally, I've never understood the logic of using software that's well over a decade old and no longer supported and undoubtedly full of security holes when you can buy a perfectly working licence key for say MS Office 2021 for just US six dollars.

Shambles Bank said:

Personally, I've never understood the logic of using software that's well over a decade old and no longer supported and undoubtedly full of security holes when you can buy a perfectly working licence key for say MS Office 2021 for just US six dollars.

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TBH, for the casual Word or Excel user a free solution like Libre Office is more than enough.

Fishmill said:

I last knowingly ran Windows Update on September 8

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It will be interesting to know if you have done the September updates [to reach 26200.9457].


Denis

z3r010 said:

TBH, for the casual Word or Excel user a free solution like Libre Office is more than enough.

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I have to admit, I've tried Libre Office more than once and for some reason, I just couldn't get on with it. I honestly have no idea why. I currently have Office 2024 and it does everything I need and of course, it still gets regular updates.

Shambles Bank said:

Personally, I've never understood the logic of using software that's well over a decade old and no longer supported and undoubtedly full of security holes when you can buy a perfectly working licence key for say MS Office 2021 for just US six dollars.

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I am not sure how legit these very cheap licenses are. They might be genuine but violate the EULA. Also if an old version, such as Office 2010 say, works fine and you don't need the extra features of a newer version, why pay again? That's the difference between standalone versions and 365 versions. You pay for the standalone once and you use it as long as it suits your needs. Besides, there are many old third-party applications that new ones do not duplicate their features or do them in a much different and inconvenient way. In that case I would rather use the old application and do it the way I want and feel familiar with, than buy a new application and struggle to do it a new way.

Shambles Bank said:

I have to admit, I've tried Libre Office more than once and for some reason, I just couldn't get on with it. I honestly have no idea why. I currently have Office 2024 and it does everything I need and of course, it still gets regular updates.

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Libre Office might be enough for simple documents and simple spreadsheets, but once something more advanced is involved there are incompatibilities. I was creating a document in Microsoft Word with tables. images placed at specific places related to the text, certain colors etc. I then wanted to edit this document on a computer that did not have Microsoft Office, so I installed Libre Office. Once I opened the document all the page layout was screwed! The tables and images were at wrong places, the colors were different, a total mess. Same if I created a document in Libre Office, saved as Word 97-2003 and then opened in Microsoft Word to edit it. I don't know what happens elsewhere, but here in Greece almost everyone running Windows is using some version of Microsoft Word. So if I want to share documents with others without any issues I must also use Microsoft Word, let alone the interface is more familiar and there are many features not in Libre Office. Regardless if I use any of these features, I want them all, I hate the idea I am missing something.

Try3 said:

It will be interesting to know if you have done the September updates [to reach 26200.9457].


Denis

Click to expand...

For what it's worth: as of right now, the last things shown in my Windows Update listing are:

Security Update (KB5124008) (26200.9445)

.NET Framework Security Update (KB5126052)

Both successfully installed on September 8, 2026.

I have no idea if that is accurate or what it ultimately signifies. I've long since given up on the machinations of Windows Update and just try to protect myself from it by making a full disc image immediately before searching for Updates. For all I know, my Office 2010 Home and Student will fail to open on my next attempt.

This calls for a little experiment. I have a virtual machine running Windows 11 26H2 26300.9445. I will try to install Microsoft Office 2010 or 2007 and see what happens. I will post results.

Trapperr said:

Do we have to install MS 365 and pay the subscription? Being pensioners we are not tech savvy and only want the basics of Excel and Word. We are to old to start learning new programs and updates and upgrades usually mean more complications and more confusion!

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You can purchase a perpetual license of Office 2024 which is supported until October 09, 2029.

Something weird happened to my Office license too. Yesterday I installed KB5124010 aka 26200.9550. I woke up today to find Office 2019 uninstalled, or reinstalled and unlicensed. I had three languages installed including US English, which matches my OS. Office would only run in language 2. I could make out that it was asking me for a license key. In my installed apps, it shows that language 2 was installed yesterday, though I made no changes. It did not show Language 1 or 3.

I found the original installer stub (6 MB file) from 2019 in my files and ran that, hoping to get English. It started in Language 3 (which I never used until 2022 or so) and it installed Language 3, but Office still ran in Language 2. I then realized I could change language without entering the license key, so I did that, and Office downloaded US English and made it the default. I then re-entered my license key, and things seem to be working again. For what it's worth, I do not have (or want) an online account with Microsoft. I am using a legit HUP license key. And Windows uses a local account.

tl;dr I also think that Windows update messed with my Office license.

altae said:

You can purchase a perpetual license of Office 2024 which is supported until October 09, 2029.

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He could, if he could afford it. But unless he needs new features not available in older version, why pay again? The whole point of a standalone version if to use it forever without paying again. Microsoft should consider a free upgrade between versions. Of course not from 2010 to 2024, but from 2021 to 2024 should be free as it is from Windows 10 to 11.

spapakons said:

This calls for a little experiment. I have a virtual machine running Windows 11 26H2 26300.9445. I will try to install Microsoft Office 2010 or 2007 and see what happens. I will post results.

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I installed the trial version of Microsoft Office 2010 Professional Plus on a virtual machine running Windows 11 26H2 build 26300.9445. Installer did not warn me against compatibility and completed successfully as you can see in the screenshots. I am now updating to build 26300.9457 to see if that affects Office 2010. I will also install all available Office 2010 updates and check again. I will post back with my results.