Office 2016 - Why do you hate me so much?

The title is a little misleading here. Today I looked at my start menu in Windows 10 and thought, hmm, it looks bare. Then I realised all my office icons had vanished. I obviously don't look enough because they have been off the start menu for 2 weeks!

What happened?

Basically Office 2016 likes to update itself, just like Windows 10. This is fine, I don't mind as long as its updater stays separate from Windows. I can't stand windows forcing updates through, which is why its disabled. The icons have obviously had some metadata updated somewhere and the reference to the application has obviously changed which is why the start menu no longer recognises it and has removed it.

Why am I posting though?

If your like me and want to be able to control more about your system, you'll probably want to stop these sorts of changes happening. I know a number of people who would probably have a heart attack because the icons have gone! Its no big deal but the hassle of having to put them back should never be needed. The start menu in Windows 10 is notoriously painful to deal with if your a systems administrator and that is why I am so thoroughly fed up with Microsoft.

Switch then and quit complaining

I would love to, I just like playing old games, I would be using some variety of Linux by now otherwise.

OK, fine, so I managed to read this far. What are you suggesting?

There's a service called Office Click to Run which can be disabled safely and will disable future updates in office. Its quite a simple one really. Office does have other ways to handle updating so it wont be completely removed.