Microsoft Office officially dropped support for macOS 10.12 Sierra last week with the release of the 16.31 updates. This came as no surprise to MacAdmins as the Office for Mac team announced the N-2 macOS support plan back on Sept. 4, 2018. What did come as a surprise was a new Microsoft AutoUpdate (MAU) alert encouraging users to upgrade to macOS Catalina.
Apr 16, 2015 Describes the Microsoft AutoUpdate 3.0.6 package that is available to correct problems in the tool that prevent you from downloading Office for Mac 2011 updates.
This issue has been fixed in Microsoft AutoUpdate version 3.14.1. If one or more of your applications were inadvertently upgraded to Office 2016 for Mac, use the following steps to revert to Office for Mac 2008. Open Finder and navigate to the /Applications/Microsoft Office 2008 folder.
This obviously presents a problem in managed environments where end users are not able to upgrade themselves directly though the App Store. While most admins should focus their efforts on upgrading computers to a newer version of macOS, in environments where computers must remain on Sierra or older, suppressing this dialog is desired.
Microsoft Autoupdate Required Data Notice
Thankfully it is possible to do so with a configuration profile, read on for the details.
Microsoft Office Autoupdate Mac
Microsoft Autoupdate Mac Required Data Notice Microsoft
Apr 16, 2015 Describes the Microsoft AutoUpdate 3.0.6 package that is available to correct problems in the tool that prevent you from downloading Office for Mac 2011 updates.