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Learn Ways to Downgrade Outlook 2016 to 2013 Efficiently

author
Published By Siddharth
Aswin Vijayan
Approved By Aswin Vijayan
Published On September 13th, 2022
Reading Time 4 Minutes Reading

Newer technology is not always better, especially when it comes to the software, and sometimes latest versions of the software can also cause few compatibility issues. Once in a while, such problems can occur in Microsoft Office programs due to crashes or when it stops responding. Therefore, we are going to discuss how to downgrade Outlook 2016 to 2013 on Windows machine. Consider a scenario that helps to understand more clearly:

“I have a Microsoft Office 365 Home subscription. So I have installed Outlook on Windows OS but unfortunately, Outlook 2016 is not able to connect to the server. It shows constantly that the username or password is incorrect. I have reported the problem, but in the meantime, I need to carry on using Outlook 2013. Please help me out if I can rollback Outlook 2016 to 2013.”

Before to Begin the Process

  • First, make sure to maintain the backup of your data on the computer system. Uninstall Office program cannot be deleted or changed any of the account information, but in any case, be ready.
  • Second, you must have all the passwords and account information of your email accounts in case of any need.
  • Keep in mind to uninstall the Outlook 2016 first, reboot your computer system and then, follow the below workarounds.

Solutions to Downgrade Outlook 2016 to 2013

Go through the following set of instructions to downgrade Office home and business 2016 to 2013 such as:

Method 1: Activate Microsoft Office 2013 Subscription

Recently, Microsoft has added a possible way to revert to the previous version of Microsoft Office on My Account page, and to do this, just follow these set of instructions to rollback Outlook 2016 to 2013:

  • First, Login to the Microsoft store account and click on install
  • Now, choose the language and install options
  • Next, selecting the Additional install options
  • After this, Choose MS Outlook 2013 as the preferred version and 32 or 64-bit edition, which depends on the processor and operating system

Method 2: Remove Outlook 2016 and Install Outlook 2013

This is pretty effortless & simple solution to Downgrade Outlook 2016 to 2013:

  • Download the software from Microsoft to remove Outlook 2016 application
  • Now, to install one of the following editions of Office 2013:

1. For Business Premium Versions

  • 32-bit version
  • 64-bit version

2. For Enterprise E3 version:

  • 32-bit version
  • 64-bit version

After installing the Outlook 2013, one can easily disable the automatic updates so it cannot update to MS Office 2016 as its own.

Perform the following steps to Downgrade Outlook 2016 to 2013:

Step 1: First, to Open Registry Editor by typing regedit inside the Search bar
Step 2: Navigate to the below path:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\office\15.0\common\officeupdate

Step 3: Now, to add this particular value to the MS Office update subkey:
“enableautomaticupgrade”=dword:00000000.
In case, if you are unable to perform this, then, you can easily skip this step. Instead of downloading and accessing this file.

Method 3 – Download Outlook 2013 Offline Installation Package

  • Download & Install Office Deployment Tool from the URL (In case, if download link unable to work then, install the older version)
  • Now, run the Office Deployment Tool from Click-to-Run and then, extract it to C drive
  • Next, go to C drive, open configuration.xml and remove everything from it
  • Type the following command into a configuration.xml file:

After this, you can replace the certain data. Must remember to keep each value within the quotes:

1. Set SourcePath to the C drive:\Office15\
2. Set OfficeClientEdition to 32 or 64-bit version
3. Set Product ID values
4. Set the Language ID to en-us for changing the version

As we have already mentioned, keep all the values between certain quotes. If you cannot do that, the installation may become fail.

  • Run the Command Prompt by entering cmd in a Search box. Enter the following to switch to that particular folder:
    cd C:\Office15
  • Now, go to the following cmd:
    setup.exe /download configuration.xml
  • Next, enter to the C drive:\Office15>Office>Data and locate the desired folder with numbers
  • Again, go back to C drive:\Office15, open the configuration.xml and then, paste this into it:
  • After this, you have to change the values when downloading MS Office in Step 4
  • Then, to start the Command Prompt and enter this: cd C:\Office15.
  • Next, type this into the cmd to begin the installation process
    setup.exe /configure configuration.xml
  • If you have received any errors, you must need to check the configuration.xml if the values are same as in Step 4 and Step 7 and if they have properly placed within the quotes.

After performing the above methods finally, the users can easily Downgrade Outlook 2016 to 2013 in an efficient manner.

Conclusion

As we have considered the reasons due to which, one needs to downgrade Outlook 2016 to 2013. Therefore, users should follow the relevant workarounds (discussed above), which helps to rollback Outlook 2016 to 2013 in a simplified way. Also, we have mentioned some prerequisites those are performed at the beginning of the procedure.