Cannot update Office 365 applications automatically when installed via deployment tool

Hi all,

We have Office 2016 Professional Plus installed into our PC image which is installed on all of our company computers. This was installed using the Office Deployment Tool which installs Office 2016 from a network share, it is also set to update from a network share and to use the "Deferred" channel.

I am having a bit of trouble with the automatic updates. The source files are located in the path set by the Office Deployment Tool, security permissions are set correctly and the end users can get to that folder to get the updates.

If you go onto an Office application and go to File > Account and Update Now, it does successfully update Office to the version which is specified in the update location.

Sounds so good so far, right?

The problem I am having is I can't seem to get any of the clients to actually automatically update, it only seems to be if the end user goes to File > Account and Update Now.

I never set a deadline in the original config.xml script because obviously this would change, instead I just thought it would do it. (It was all new to me when it was originally implemented).

So I have set a deadline using GPO, which doesn't appear to be working. I set the deadline to the previous day in hope that my test client would quickly realise it needs to update. I can confirm that the registry key has been updated for the client to include the deadline. I have entered it in the format of MM/DD/YYYY HH:MM as stated in the policy details, I've also tried it with DD/MM/YYYY HH:MM in case the locale does make a difference (I am based in the UK). Still nothing..

I have then frantically tried enabling some other GPO's in order to try and force it which have not worked either. I set the GPO's "enable automatic updates", "enable office 365 client management" and set the "update path" which is the same as the config.xml location. This was a clutching at straws moment because all of these things are set in the original config.xml.

I don't believe there is an issue with the location of the updates or that Office doesn't know where to look, because if you manually tell it to update, it does successfully.

What could I be missing? I really don't want to have to log into 500 clients to click "update now" and then possibly again in the future.

I've listed my original config.xml below which was created using the github deployment tool webpage before Microsoft created their own.


<Configuration>
    <Add SourcePath="\\deploy\Office2016Install" OfficeClientEdition="32" Channel="Current" OfficeMgmtCOM="TRUE">
        <Product ID="O365ProPlusRetail">
            <Language ID="en-us"/>
            <ExcludeApp ID="OneDrive" />
        </Product>
    </Add>
    <Updates Enabled="TRUE" Channel="Deferred" UpdatePath="\\deploy\Office2016Update"/>
    <Display Level="Full" AcceptEULA="TRUE"/>
    <Property Name="FORCEAPPSHUTDOWN" Value="TRUE"/>
    <Property Name="PinIconsToTaskbar" Value="FALSE"/>
    <Logging Level="Standard" Path="%Temp%"/>
</Configuration>


Thanks in advance,

Mike