Disable force update of Microsoft Search in Bing and Office 365ProPlus

Hello everyone,

A recent update from Microsoft has announced that starting with Version 2002 of Office 365 ProPlus, an extension for Microsoft Search in Bing will be installed that makes Bing the default search engine for the Google Chrome web browser on devices whose IP address are present in the following locations.

Australia
Canada
France
Germany
India
United Kingdom
United States

This extension will be installed with new installations of Office 365 ProPlus or when existing installations of Office 365 ProPlus are updated. Version 2002 is the first version of Office 365 ProPlus that will install this extension and is expected to be released in Monthly Channel in early March 2020.

The installation of these extensions can be prevented through any of the following methods.

Deployment of Scripts
Group Policy
Office Deployment Tool

Deployment of Scripts:

Desktop Central offers a solution to prevent or remove this extension. In templates, under custom scripts, the PreventBingExtensionInstallation.bat and RemoveBingExtensions.bat scripts are available. Deploy these scripts as computer configuration to retain your devices from getting affected by the Bing extension.

Note: Convert the text file to bat file and deploy it to all the network computers.

Group Policy:

If you use Group Policy in your organization, go to Computer Configuration\Policies\Administrative Templates\Microsoft Office 2016 (Machine)\Updates and enable the Don't install extension for Microsoft Search in Bing that makes Bing the default the search engine policy setting.

Office Deployment Tool:

If you use the Office Deployment Tool, you can use the ExcludeApp element in your configuration.xml file, as shown below.