If you installed Office 2016 for Mac back in September but haven’t been able to update the suite since, here’s a look at some troubleshooting tips.
- Microsoft Office for Mac 2011 offers a solid update to the Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and the other members of the productivity suite. Though the latest package is still not on par with the Windows.
- Microsoft Office 2016 - Unmistakably Office, designed for Mac. The new versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, and OneNote provide the best of both worlds for Mac users - the familiar Office experience paired with the best of Mac.
I installed Office 2016 on Mac back in September, but I have not been able to update the suite since. Not a big deal, considering I have what needed to do with the suite. Yes, it’s a bad habit, since updating the suite also protects the system from security issues. What ultimately forced me to try and resolve the problem was that I wanted to get the new feature updates, such as the new Full-Screen view in Outlook 2016, reliability and performance upgrades.
The new Office 2016 for Mac includes updated versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote and Outlook-and the moment you open any one of the apps, you'll immediately feel the difference.
Resolve Office 2016 AutoUpdate for Mac not Working
To download the latest updates for Office 2016, I needed to have AutoUpdate version 3.4 installed. Checking for Updates from the Help menu was not working. I even tried to download the update manually, but Microsoft’s Support page behaved unresponsive, even in alternative web browsers.
It turns out the culprit was the DNS server Microsoft uses to connect to the public Internet. Either it’s a compatibility issue with the version of OS X Yosemite or Microsoft is not aware of the problem yet. The not so obvious solution I have found for this is to use Google’s public DNS address. Here is how you do it.
Launch System Preferences and go to Network > Advanced.
Next click the DNS tab and then the Add (+) button at the bottom.
Now enter the following addresses: 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4 then click OK.
Launch, any of the Office 2016 apps, then click Help > Check for Updates then click Install.
That’s it! You should now be back in business and be able to download and install the updates.
Download Update Microsoft Office 2016 For Mac
This solution might not be for everyone, but it’s worth a shot if you’re having a similar problem. You can always try downloading the AutoUpdate 3.4 update manually first to see if that will work. If not, then you can give the DNS entries a try.