Informed Webmaster

I thought about bumping this old thread: windows/windows-10-is-installing-office ... -t964.html
but decided a new one might be a better choice since this is slightly different.

Sunday morning I tried to open office to create a new document and was forced to a web page version of word. If I clicked on links to existing files they opened in word 2019.

So the Evil Empire has modified my registry entries without my permission. I confirmed from a reliable source they have done this stuff before, quite often actually.

As I have hated the office interface ever since I upgraded to 2019 and really only use Word, Excel and One-Note I looked for a solution. It was pretty simple once I found where the exe files hide. They reside in C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Office\root\Office16 and are named:
winword.exe
excel.exe
onenote.exe

Creating a shortcut to each of those files and placing it on the desktop eliminates the need for the clunky Office interface and loads them far more quickly. MS can modify the Office associations or registry entries all they want and it won't affect my ability to use those programs.

I also uninstalled onedrive but it seems like a cancer appears to be back.

I assume this would work for Outhouse and and any other programs that are part of the suite.