I can't get rid of Skype for Business

Question

_{Saturday, May 30, 2015 2:25 PM}

I cannot find Skype for Business in my programs or anywhere.  I can only find the shortcut within the Microsoft Office 2013 folder.  I deleted Skype (reluctantly) hoping it would get rid of Skype for Business which opens automatically and cannot be closed but it did not work.  How do I get rid of it, please?

All replies (9)

_{Monday, June 1, 2015 6:13 AM ✅Answered | 2 votes}

Hi Indigold,

Skype for Business (and it's predecessor which was called Microsoft Lync) are packaged as part of Office. So, if you go to Programs and Features, and select your Microsoft Office installation (mine is called Microsoft Office Professional Plus 2013 - but yours may vary), and then choose to Add/Remove Features, you should see it in the list.

As I said - you'll probably see it listed as Microsoft Lync - that's the same thing, the name change to Skype for Business was quite recent and not everything has been updated yet:

Hope this helps,

-tom

Tom Morgan | Skype for Business Blog: thoughtstuff.co.uk

_{Monday, June 1, 2015 10:37 AM | 1 vote}

Found it! Thank you so much Tom.

_{Tuesday, July 21, 2015 3:27 PM | 1 vote}

My "programs and features" doesn't have a drop down menu for Microsoft.  IT only asks if I want to uninstall all of MS, which I don't want to do.

_{Thursday, February 25, 2016 12:17 PM | 5 votes}

Tom,

The link you show does not appear in Office 2016. The only Add/Remove choices are Repair and Uninstall, which gives no granularity at all. Your only choice is to completely remove Office 2016. Yet, Add/Remove permits you to individually uninstall Skype for Business. This creates an unstable condition in which Skype is no longer installed, but Office 2016 doesn't know it.

So how do I get rid of the unwanted Skype for Business without messing up my Office 2016 installation? Further, by what yardstick does this situation constitute good software design and testing? Microsoft certainly has nothing to be proud of here.

_{Friday, March 30, 2018 1:37 AM}

Can you describe step by step how you found it please?

_{Monday, May 7, 2018 9:40 PM}

I think he forgot to tell that you open this menu by starting the Office install program (disk or disk image) and then select add/delete components (it is not the exact name but I have a different language version so I don't know it in English but it is the first option on the top)

_{Thursday, July 19, 2018 3:57 AM}

This is the process to get rid of Skype for Business? It's so intuitive and of course it's Microsoft

_{Friday, March 29, 2019 4:06 PM}

the way to get rid of 'skype', 'skype for business' or 'onedrive for business' is to open file location of any app.  right click and there should be an option to 'move to onedrive'. click and apps have moved.  then go to onedrive folder and open.  select app to remove and right click and press delete.  all done and all gone!!!

_{Wednesday, December 4, 2019 8:04 PM}

You forgot to mention to click on it and select Not Available. Otherwise this way worked perfectly, thanks :)