Office has a sign-in button in the top corner of every program by default to give you the (supposed) benefit of linking everything you do to Microsoft’s cloud. There’s a way to disable this “feature” by changing a simple registry key. I understand that this information isn’t new; there are articles out there on how to do this. But without fail I need to look it up every time I reinstall Office, so this is here for my own sanity.
This fix will work for Office 2013 as well as Office 2016 (and 2021, just verified!), but be aware that it may not work for future versions.
The key is HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\16.0\Common\SignIn\SignInOptions, with a DWORD value of 3. Here’s the .reg file for your convenience, or you can copy/paste the contents below:
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00 [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\16.0\Common\SignIn] "SignInOptions"=dword:00000003
Since closing my Microsoft Account last September I had been trying unsuccessfully using possible methods found in my Google searches over the next 7 months to disable the sign in button links to my non existent MS account at the top of my Office Pro Plus 2021 Excel & Word programs since I hit it a few times by accident only to get the message that the account did not exist, which of course I knew because I closed it! You cannot imagine my relief and euphoria last Thursday night when in seconds they were gone after I clicked on your “the.reg file link” above and ignored Microsoft’s security warning something about letting files from unknown sources run and make changes to my computer unless I know they’re safe and clicked on continue. I still can’t believe it, I’d become desperate, given up hope and was just about to give up. Thanks so very much. You’re a wizard in my book.
P.S. My operating system is Windows 11