How to get rid of Enterprise office

I'm selling a surface go 2 so I cleaned the drive and installed windows 11 from the microsoft recovery download. However, it is windows 11 pro and it seems to come with masses of entries for office enterprise, in a multitude of entries, that fill up the app list. I don't really want to sell it like that (and I wouldn't want that if I was using it).

So is there a way of removing them all (other than uninstalling one by one?). Or should I just do a clean install? (If I do a clean install maybe it will be missing some surface drivers or firmware?)

And the answer was ..........

Open "Get Help" in the apps list
Type "Uninstall Microsoft Office"
Click yes

A powershell window opens and uninstalls all the office enterprise apps.

Except if I do a reset they all appear again ..........

If you're reselling a Surface PC, isn't it more logical to install the recovery image "as is"? While it's easy for the buyer to wipe the system with a clean Windows ISO, it's harder for a first-time owner to track down all the drivers (which are part of the recovery image).

The reason a factory reset restores the Office suite is MS embeds the Office setup installer into the recovery image. Because MS owns the whole stack (Surface PC, Windows, Office), it's all thrown in.

You could leave the buyer a README.TXT note, explaining how to remove Office if they're uninterested in it.

Thanks - yes that's a good idea. The recovery image only installs 23H2 so I set it up so I could upgrade it to 24H2 and then do a reset. I think it was after 24H2 when the office apps appeared in about 20 different languages.

Hazel123 said:

Thanks - yes that's a good idea. The recovery image only installs 23H2 so I set it up so I could upgrade it to 24H2 and then do a reset. I think it was after 24H2 when the office apps appeared in about 20 different languages.

Click to expand...

A factory reset does a reinstall from a WIM image file hidden inside the Recovery partition. So if you upgraded it to 24H2, it would return to 23H2. That can't be fixed unless you find a newer Recovery image to replace the current one. Which might not exist.

However if you're kind, you can upgrade it in place for the prospective user and then suggest they make their own Recovery USB of the current system when they first receive it. This way they don't roll all the way back to 23H2, by running a factory reset.

It did seem to keep 24H2 after a reset - but it put office enterprise back again in 20 different languages. I might just sell it set up and upgraded and optimised for performance (background apps turned off etc) with a note they can re-set if they want but it'll install office enterprise again - which can be removed again by doing xyz. Some people think the surface go 2 is sluggish because they don't know about optimising for performance. On the other hand a buyer might want to eke out battery life. Oh well - decisions.

I suspect the latest recovery image is only for the latest version - ie 24H2 might not be available until 23H2 ends.

I think I'll set it all up ready to go, with all updates done and the mass of apps in 20 languages removed (quite a few updates needed after the factory install) and they can reset and start from scratch if they want to, and just say that a reset will reinstall office enterprise apps in 20 languages and if they don't want them, this is how to remove them.

Just depends who buys it - some people are happy to have everything set up and ready to go - others like to start with a clean slate (like me!).