I’ll give you the basic idea of what exactly is Microsoft office Click-to-Run. For detailed explanation follow the link Overview of Click-to-Run.

  • Click-to-Run is a Microsoft streaming and virtualization technology that reduces the time that is required to install Office and helps you run multiple versions of Office on the same computer. The streaming technology enables you to download and begin to use an Office product before the whole product is installed on your computer.
  • Click-to-Run is an alternative to the traditional Windows Installer-based (MSI) method of installing and updating Office. If you install Office by using MSI, you have to wait until the whole Office product is installed before you can open and start to use the product. But with the streaming capabilities in Click-to-Run, you can open and start to use the product before the whole product is installed. While you are using the product, the rest of the product is being downloaded in the background. If you try to use a feature that is not yet downloaded and installed, Click-to-Run immediately downloads and installs that feature.

Now, for the second part of your question, you cannot uninstall Click-to-Run because technically it’s an installer and if you try to uninstall it you’ll get some error and probably the Office installation will get corrupted.

Since, Click-to-Run provides update to the Office suite and is an important component of Microsoft Office it’s NOT advisable to uninstall it anyway. However, if you still for some reason want to get rid of it, there is a workaround for that.

Since Click-to-Run is a service not a program, you can certainly disable it by following the below steps:

  • Click Start and go to Control Panel.
  • Click on Administrative Tools and go to Services (Alternatively type “services.msc” without quotes in search box in Start menu)
  • In Services window find Microsoft Office ClickToRun service, Right click it, select Properties
  • In General tab find Startup Type, Pull down menu, select Disable. Click Okay and restart your computer.

Note: The above steps are for Windows 7 but that should work with Windows 8, 10 also.

The Click-to-Run service won’t start from now on. Keep in mind though that it’s not advisable to keep your softwares outdated. Always keep your softwares up-to-date as many of the updates include security patches which are very important to keep your data safe.