Why do I still get Office 2010 updates after uninstalling it?

In this excerpt from Answercast #84, I look at a case where an uninstalled Microsoft Office
version is still asking for updates.

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Office 2010 updates

There are potentially two different things going on here – and it’s possible that in fact what you’re experiencing isn’t a problem at all.

Microsoft… gosh! It’s hard to describe. Very frequently, pieces of Microsoft Office, even later versions, get installed and end up being used by the version of Office that you might have already have. In other words, Office 2003 might now in fact be referring to a few of the components that were previously there because of Office 2010.

In reality, that’s not a problem. If the program’s working for you and working well for you, I see no reason to do anything about that. I would in fact simply accept the Office 2010 updates. As long as they work, I really don’t see an issue in doing that.

Failed uninstall

Now, the other side of the coin is that yeah, maybe the uninstall failed. Maybe something didn’t work in that uninstall. Or maybe it just wasn’t complete.

I’d be surprised if there weren’t any error messages at the time the uninstall happened. Microsoft is usually pretty good about cleaning up the kinds of things that would result in unneeded updates.

But, in case that happened, I’d try Revo Uninstaller.

Revo actually does a pretty good job, particularly if you take the more aggressive uninstall approach of scanning a few extra places that uninstall programs will sometimes leave behind. That may clear things up for you.

But in all honesty, my money is on this not being a problem. While it’s confusing, I would go ahead and begin by accepting all of those updates and just letting Windows update do its thing.

(Transcript lightly edited for readability.)