You may be wondering, if those users are still using Office 2016 and 2019, why do they have MS 365 on their computers, thus having this update pushed to them?  My guess is that they are using PCs that have MS 365 trial pre-installed.  I don't really know what the exact circumstances that would trigger this bug.

Thanks for the heads-up, Kevin. That's exactly why I generally recommend being cautious with optional updates, especially anything related to Office licensing or cleanup tools. If someone has a working standalone Office 2016 or 2019 installation, there's usually no benefit to installing an update intended to remove older Microsoft 365 components.

The preinstalled Microsoft 365 trial theory makes sense. A lot of PCs come with that trial or a pile of Office-related background components even if the owner later installs a perpetual-license version of Office. That can make the update detection and licensing situation unnecessarily confusing.

For now, I'd avoid KB5002907 unless Microsoft clarifies what it does and confirms that it won't affect legitimate Office 2016 or 2019 installations.

We had something similar happen yesterday.  My wife discovered that the 2019 version of Office on her computer was no longer active.  Whenever she opened an Office app (Outlook specifically) it showed a banner that said the program could not be used after the 29th unless it was activated.  (Fortunately, she found the printed email in our lock box.)  

She found a new update called "Click-to-Run Update Support" that had been installed/updated automatically (presumably when the computer was started).  I've never seen this update before, so I'm wondering if it "deactivated" Office 2019?  

That certainly sounds consistent with the reports Kevin found, especially with the timing. "Click-to-Run Update Support" is normally just part of the Office update mechanism, so I can't say for certain that it caused it, but an Office 2019 perpetual license should not suddenly need activation because of an ordinary update.

Good thing she had the original purchase email and product key safely stored. I would keep an eye on it for the next few days and avoid any optional Office updates until Microsoft acknowledges what is going on.

Kevin you were saying...??? LOL

Microsoft Pauses KB5002907 After Office 2016 and 2019 Deactivations

I remember when I loaded office 2019, office automatically loaded office 365 trial and pushed for me to use it.  I was confused, at first, what was going on.  I had to manually remove it.  Combine that with Windows 11's forced updates, it is not surprising that this has happened.

Richard  I left a message on the BleepingComputer article to ask whether this affected people without MS 365 in their computers.  It seems this affected many people, and it's unlikely they all had trial versions of MS 365.

The only 365 component on my computer is MS 365 Copilot, and I didn't have the KB5002907 update pushed to me.  I'm really curious to know what caused the update to be pushed to users.  Has anyone here got it among their optional updates?

Matt, that's a perfect example of how confusing Microsoft's Office installs can get. You buy Office 2019, and then it tries to steer you into Microsoft 365 alongside it.

Kevin, I haven't seen KB5002907 offered on any of my machines, but I'm very slow to install updates myself. I usually wait until I've got a free weekend available, just in case something goes sideways. I've had enough updates cause trouble over the years that I keep automatic updates turned off on pretty much all of my machines. The exception is my testing machine, since it's on the beta channel and needs to pull down the new beta builds.