Hi All,

In my last thread, I asked users how they managed Office deployments. People were very helpful and suggested all methods of how they deploy it. From deploy all, let license manage it to create groups and specify the members dynamically. All very interesting read and I ended up implementing the suggestion in this comment: https://www.reddit.com/r/Intune/comments/1ghays6/comment/luwlc01/

However, after downloading the ODT, creating the necessary setup xml files, creating the application package and then assigning it to my test group and deploying it, I seem to be getting some errors after deploying it via intune. In a clean test vm, the setup.exe /configure <xmlfile>.xml installed the correct version of office including the exclusions. When we deployed it via intune to a device that that used to have a M365Apps deployment of Office 365, it does not seem to work and gives Installation failed in company portal. After ensuring the device is in all Office 365 App deployments that we had (remember, this is an inherited mess we are deciphering and fixing) in the uninstall group, the device still manages to have office installed.

Finally, to ensure I full removed it, I created a xml file with the following and ran it on the device. This cleaned out all the Office installation and then I rebooted the device.

<Configuration>
  <Remove All="TRUE">
  </Remove>
</Configuration><Configuration>
  <Remove All="TRUE">
  </Remove>
</Configuration>

Thinking this would have nuked all of office, after rebooting the device, in company portal, I still see a failed install for word (or maybe it has installed it but its not installing the version I want - 16.0.17928.20216. Instead, its installed a lower version from the SemiAnnual ring. HOW? In the configuration file, I've defined it to be the MonthlyEnterprise update ring.

So, helpful people of r/intune, How do I go about fixing this? This leads me to questioning the involvement of config.office.com policies. In our Intune, I do not see any policies created that could set this up. However, I do see this: https://imgur.com/a/FnXM9dY

Are there any helpful blogs/resources that you've come across that can give me a TL;DR version of how to deploy office/or configs correctly?

Thanks a bunch.