Fix: Incompatible Office Products are Installed on Your Machine

Some users get the Incompatible Office Products are Installed on your Machine when trying to open Excel, Word, Powerpoint or a document from a similar Office program. Affected users report that upon clicking Ok, the files open normally and all the functions are working correctly. Even though this error is mainly visual, it’s still nerve-racking to have this error pop up every time you open something with the Office suite.

Based on the majority of affected users are saying, the error typically occurs on the very first document opened with an Office program. Once the error is displayed and closed (via the OK button), other documents opened with a word program will not exhibit the same behavior. The error is mainly reported to occur on Windows 7.

Furthermore, some users report that they only get this error message while opening documents on a mapped network drive. For them, the error is not displayed at all when opening documents stored on the local hard drive.

What is causing the Incompatible Office Products are Installed on your Machine error?

We investigated this particular issue by trying to recreate the issue and looking at various user reports. Based on what we gathered, there are several scenarios that are known to lead to this error message:

• Stand-alone Microsoft OneDrive 2013 sync client is installed – If you only get this error with documents from a mapped network drive, it’s very likely that Microsoft OneDrive sync client is causing the error. Uninstalling the sync client will likely resolve the issue
• Microsoft OneDrive bug – There are several reports that point towards the regular Microsoft Office program (not the Business sync client) of being responsible for the error. Some users have managed to get the issue resolved by re-installing Microsoft OneDrive.
• Stand-alone OneNote 2013 is creating an unsupported configuration – This error can also occur if you have a standalone installation of OneNote over a complete installation of Microsoft Office 2013.
• Office 2013 ProPlus and Office 365 are installed on the same machine – Apparently, these two versions are known to conflict, causing this particular error. Some users have managed to resolve the conflict by sticking to only one product.

If you’re struggling to resolve this particular issue, this article will provide you with a series of troubleshooting steps. Below you have a collection of methods that other users in a similar situation have used to get the issue resolved. Depending on the source of the issue, there can be multiple causes, so please follow the methods below in order until you stumble upon a fix that is effective in resolving the issue.

Method 1: Uninstalling stand-alone Microsoft OneDrive 2013 sync client (if applicable)

Most of the time, this particular issue is reported to be caused by Microsoft OneDrive for Business 2013 sync client. However, based on what most affected users are saying, the issue can occur with any version of the stand-alone Microsoft sync client.

Basically, the issue is occurring because your edition of Office 2013 already comes with its own OneDrive sync client. This ends up conflicting with the stand-alone sync client that was already present on the system, creating the Incompatible Office product installed on your machine. This supposedly happens because the stand-alone sync client was only designed to be installed with Office 2010.

If this scenario is applicable to your current situation,  you can resolve the issue by uninstalling the incompatible OneDrive sync client. Here’s a quick guide on how to do this:

1. Press Windows key + R to open up a Run dialog box. Then, type “appwiz.cpl” and press Enter to open up Programs and Features.

   

2. Once you get inside Programs and Features, scroll down through the list of installed programs and locate the entry named Microsoft OneDrive for Business 2013 (or Microsoft OneDrive).

   

3. Right-click on Microsoft OneDrive 2013 and choose Uninstall. Then, follow the on-screen prompts to remove it from your system.
4. Once the sync client has been removed, restart your computer and see if the issue has been resolved at the next startup.

If you’re still seeing the Incompatible Office product installed on your machine error when opening Microsoft Office documents, move down to the next method below.

Method 2: Uninstall the stand-alone version of OneNote

Another scenario in which this error occurs is if the user has also installed the standalone version of OneNote on a machine that has the Microsoft Office 2013 suite. Apparently, this will create an unsupported configuration, triggering the Incompatible Office product installed on your machine error every time a file is opened with a program from the Microsoft Office 2013 suite.

To resolve the issue in this particular case, you’ll need to uninstall the stand-alone version of OneNote from Programs and features and if you need OneNote, reinstall it from the Office Suite. Here’s a quick guide on how to do this:

1. Press Windows key + R to open up a Run dialog box. Next, type “appwiz.cpl” and press Enter to open up Programs and Features.

   

2. Inside Programs and Features, scroll down through the list of applications and locate an entry named Microsoft OneNote (Business or Home and Student).
3. Once you locate it, click once to select it, then click the Uninstall button.

   

4. Follow the on-screen prompts to complete the uninstallation and restart your computer manually if you’re not automatically prompted to do so.
5. If you need to use OneNote, return to the Programs and Files screen (Step 1) at the next startup, right-click on your Microsoft Office installation and choose Change.

   

6. In the Microsoft Office wizard, select the Add or Remove Features toggle and click Continue.

   

7. Next, from the Installation Options screen, make sure that Microsoft OneNote and all its subfolders are set to Run from My computer.

   

8. Wait until the reconfiguration is complete, then restart your computer once again.

   

9. At the next startup, you should be able to open any Office file without encountering the Incompatible Office product installed on your machine error.

If the issue is still not resolved, move down to the next method below.

Method 3: Resolving the Office 2013 ProPlus – Office 365 conflict

Other users have managed to resolve this conflict after figuring out that having Office 2013 ProPlus and Office 365 installed on the same machine will produce an incompatibility conflict.

Apparently, the issue can be resolved by uninstalling both Office suite and then reinstalling only one client. If this scenario is applicable to you, we recommend keeping Office 365 since it’s the superior product.

Here’s a quick guide on resolving the Office 2013 ProPlus – Office 360 incompatibility conflict:

1. Press Windows key + R to open up a Run dialog box. Then, type “appwiz.cpl” and press Enter to open up the Programs and Features window.

   

2. Inside Programs and Features, locate Office 2013 ProPlus and Office 365 installations and uninstall both by right-clicking on their entries and choosing Uninstall.
3. Follow the on-screen prompts to complete both uninstallations, then restart your machine.
4. At the next startup, reinstall Office 365 from the supplied link or from the installation media. Once the conflict is resolved, you should no longer encounter the Incompatible Office product installed on your machine error.