What's changed in Office 2019?
The biggest change since Office 2016 is that the installation technology used by the new volume licensed versions of Office is Click-to-Run, instead of Windows Installer (MSI). Click-to-Run has been the installation technology for most Office products since the release of Office 2013.
In addition to Click-to-Run, the following are some other changes that you need to be aware of:
- Office 2019 is supported on Windows 10 but isn’t supported on Windows 7 or Windows 8.1. For more information.
- To configure and perform installations, you use the Office Deployment Tool, which is a free download from the Microsoft Download Center. The Office Customization Tool that you previously used for Windows Installer (MSI) is no longer used.
- Instead of downloading the installation files from the Volume Licensing Service Center (VLSC), you use the Office Deployment Tool to download the installation files directly from the Office Content Delivery Network (CDN) on the internet.
- When you install Office Professional Plus 2019, all apps are installed by default. But, you can configure the Office Deployment Tool to exclude certain apps from being installed.
- Office 2019 is installed on the system drive, which is usually the C:\ drive. The installation location can’t be changed.
- Updates to Office 2019, such as security updates and bug fixes, can be configured to be automatically downloaded and installed from the Office CDN. Individual downloads for each security update or bug fix aren’t available.
What's stayed the same in Office 2019?
Even though there is a different installation technology, you can still use the same software distribution tools, such as Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager, that you currently use to deploy Office. Also, how you activate volume licensed versions of Office – for example, by using Key Management Service (KMS) – remains the same.
The major version of Office 2019 is staying at 16.0, so some additional things are staying the same for those upgrading from Office 2016, including the following:
- Existing Group Policy settings will continue to work, because the registry location for those settings will still be located in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Office\16.0 and HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Office\16.0.
- Other registry locations and settings information that reference 16.0 will still apply.
- Add-ins and other extensibility solutions that are compatible with Office 2016 will most likely be compatible with Office 2019 or will require only minimal testing.
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