Perform Office Online Server Update via the Microsoft Update Catalog
In this article, we shall discuss how to perform Office Online Server Update via the Microsoft Update Catalog. Here and then, Microsoft makes software updates and new versions available to help improve server security, performance, and reliability. If you wish to apply software updates to multiple server farms. Here is how to set up and Configure Office Online Server, and How to Troubleshoot Unable to Install Office.
This article describes how to apply software updates or new versions to individual servers in an Office Online Server farm. Released updates for the Office Online Server will not only update the server itself but also any installed Office Online Server language packs.
There are no separate updates for Office Online Server language packs. This guide applies only to a single server farm. See how to perform Office Online Server Update via Windows Updates
Caution! Applying Office Online Server updates or new versions by using the automatic updates process isn’t supported with Office Online Server. This is because updates to an Office Online Server must be applied in a specific way.
Note: If Office Online Server updates are applied automatically, users may not be able to view or edit documents in Office Online. If this happens, you have to rebuild your Office Online Server farm.
Note: I am sure you do not want to embark on this cumbersome route. Therefore, it is paramount that you pay attention to the steps in the update process for the Office Online Server farm.
Here are some related guides: How to Cancel Office 365 Family Subscription, how to install and activate Office 2019 on your Mac PC, How do you change the account that Office says it belongs to on a Mac, and how to Fix Microsoft Excel Crash Issue
Apply software updates or new versions to a single server farm
As the title says, this update applies only to a single server farm.
Step 1: On the Office Online Server that you want to apply the software update to, open the Microsoft PowerShell prompt as an administrator and run the following command.
Remove-OfficeWebAppsMachine
Since I only have a single server Office Web Apps farm. Removing the server from the farm results in the dissolution of the farm.
Step 2 (optionally only for a new version)
If this is a new release of Office Online Server that you downloaded from the Volume Licensing Service Center (VLSC), then you must uninstall the existing version before you install the new version.
Note: If this is an update from Microsoft Update, then there’s no need to uninstall Office Online Server.
Step 3: Since I am not installing a new version, I will proceed to step 3 below. Install the Office Online Server update or a new version on that server.
At the time of writing this guide, here is the most recent Security Update for Microsoft Office Online Server (KB5002276) farm deployment. If you’re not using WSUS as recommended, you can download this from the Microsoft Update Catalog.
Kindly accept the EULA, and click on continue to start the update process.
Observe below as the update is presently being applied.
If prompted, restart the server. Click on “Yes“.
Following the server reboot, you need to reconfigure the farm. Therefore, proceed to the next step.
Step 4: re-create an Office Online Server farm
Open the Microsoft PowerShell prompt as an administrator and run the New-OfficeWebAppsFarm cmdlet to re-create an Office Online Server farm. These steps are similar to the steps described on how to install, and configure the Office Online Server.
The URL you specify for -InternalURL is the name of the server that runs Office Online Server, such as URL. Kindly refer to the command below, all you need to do is to replace the URLs with yours!
New-OfficeWebAppsFarm -InternalUrl "URL" -ExternalUrl "URL" -CertificateName "OfficeWebApps Certificate" -EditingEnabled
As you can see, I used the same URLs as discussed during the OOS setup. In conjunction with SharePoint Server, the -EditingEnabled parameter empowers Office Online with editing capabilities. Parameters
- InternalURL is the fully qualified domain name (FQDN) of the server that runs Office Online Server, such as
URL - ExternalURL is the FQDN that can be accessed on the Internet.
- CertificateName is the friendly name of the certificate.
- EditingEnabled is optional and enables editing in Office Online when used with SharePoint Server. Skype for Business Server 2015 and Exchange Server do not utilize this parameter since these hosts do not support editing.
Please see how to Upgrade Microsoft Office 2019 to 2021 on Mac, learn Group Policy GPUpdate Commands, and “Out-of-Band Security Update for PrintNightmare: Patch released for Windows Print Spooler Remote Code Execution Vulnerability“.
Verify that the Office Online Server farm was created successfully
After establishing the farm, the Microsoft PowerShell prompt will display farm details, as shown above. To confirm the proper installation and configuration of the Office Online Server, access the Office Online Server discovery URL through a web browser, as illustrated below.
The discovery URL is the InternalUrl parameter you specified when you configured your Office Online Server farm, followed by /hosting/discovery. For example
URL/hosting/discoveryI hope you found this blog post on how to Office Online Server Update via the Microsoft Update Catalog helpful. Please let me know in the comment session if you have any questions.
