Suppress Default File Format Office 365 Prompts on the first run via Intune
This is a knowledgebase item. Hope it helps you out someday to suppress the Default File Format Office 365 Prompts on the first run via Intune. When a user runs one of the Office 365 apps for the first time, it shows a dialog box to choose the default saving format. The user will be asked to select Office Open XML format or OpenDocument formats.
Microsoft 365 apps for Windows 10 and later can be installed via two built-in methods (Configuration designer and a configuration file in XML format). There are more options available like Win32 apps. But I prefer to use the built-in method configuration designer much as possible. But with this method, it was not possible to suppress the Default File Types prompt.
Because not all Office settings can be managed via an Administrative template or a Setting Catalog. So, you need for instance a PowerShell script to set a registry key. The disadvantage of the PowerShell script method is that you only know if the script has run successfully or not, but you won’t ever know if the Registry key has been successfully set or not set. So, you don’t know if the Default File Format prompt will be suppressed.
Registry Key to suppress prompts
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office\16.0\Common\General
Value name = ShownFileFmtPrompt
Value type = REG_DWORD
Value data = 1Another option to suppress the default file type prompt is to set an Administrative Templates or Settings Catalog and set the Default file format setting.
| Program | Setting Name | Save files as | Path |
|---|---|---|---|
| Word | Default file format | Word Document (*.docx) | \Microsoft Word 2016\Word Options\Save |
| Excel | Default file format | Excel Workbook (*.xlsx) | \Microsoft Excel 2016\Excel Options\Save |
| PowerPoint | Default file format | PowerPoint presentation (*.pptx) | \Microsoft PowerPoint 2016\PowerPoint Options\Save |
And there will probably be several other ways to accomplish the suppression of the Default File types format prompt.
The new built-in option to suppress the Default File Types prompt via Configuration designer
On the first of December, I made some configuration profiles and was doing some tests for one of my customers. I created a clean tenant to be sure. I wanted to install Microsoft 365 apps. So, I created a new app. But I noticed the new Default file format option.
First, I opened another tenant to check, and I was confused and surprised. I created a new Microsoft 365 app for Windows 10 and later and in this tenant is a required property as well. So, I opened a current entry, and I noticed that the Default file format was set to not configured. I clicked on the edit button and now I was required to set the Default file format before I was able to save my Microsoft 365 app for Windows 10 and later.
Did I miss the announcement on Intune What’s new page? Nope, it is not on the Intune What’s new page. So, I posted a tweet, and I was not the only one who did not know about this option.
Hi! My name is René Laas. I have passion and enthusiasm for the Microsoft 365 Cloud. I am based in the Netherlands.
Rami Al-zayat 
Albert Stoynov
Andrea De Santis
Markus Winkler
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