Office Background Task Handler Pop Up Issue On Windows 10 [FIXED]

Pop-ups are frequently occurring incidents on Windows devices. If you use Microsoft Office or any other application, you must have faced sudden pop-ups. These pop-ups appear abruptly out of nowhere. Although these do not harm your system, they can be quite annoying.

When the Office Background Task Handler pop up, it interrupts the current program you’re running. The full-screen program may also stop functioning. So, if the Task Handler pops up every hour, you can neither play a movie or enjoy a game.

What Causes Office Background Task Handler To Pop Up?

Usually, frequent pop-ups are associated with malware invasion or any other serious issue on your device. Initially, many users considered these pop-ups to be some malware attacks. However, that’s not the case every time you witness an Office Background Task Handler.exe popup.

The pop-ups appear as a result of an executable file: ‘officebackgroundtaskhandler.exe’. This file is a genuine part of your Microsoft Office suite. You can find this particular file in its default location: C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Office\root\Office16\officebackgroundtaskhandler.exe.

Apart from this, there isn’t any other compelling reason behind these random pop-ups.

How To Eliminate Office Background Task Handler Pop up Issue?

These unwanted pop-ups are harmless but they can cause you serious frustration. Microsoft has provided some solutions to deal with this issue. But, it wasn’t fully capable of solving the issue. 

So, if you’re trying to get rid of these pop-ups, go through the solutions in this article. 

1. Update Microsoft Office

As mentioned earlier, Microsoft offered a few fixes to get rid of these annoying pop-ups. However, to avail them, you need to update your existing version of MS Office. Since Microsoft included these fixes for Office version 16.0.8201.2025 and above.

To update your MS office, follow the instructions below:

Step 1

At first, you need to launch one of the Office applications. Now, choose a blank document from there. Locate the ‘File’ options and then click on it. Next,’ choose the ‘Account’ option.

Step 2

When the “Account” window appears, click on the ‘Office Update’ option. You can find this option just below the MS Office’s logo. From the drop-down menu, select ‘Update Now’.

Step 3

The Office application will update itself automatically. When the process is complete, you’ll receive ‘You’re up to date’ message.  To make sure that you’ve got the desired version, try out a few more steps. Go to ‘File’ and then click on ‘Account’. Now, click on the ‘Product Information’ page.

Here, you can check if MS Office has been updated to its newest version. 

2. Disable Office Background Task Handler Pop Up

One of the most popular methods to eliminate these unwanted pop-ups is to use the “Task Scheduler”. This can be an effective solution to terminate or regulate these frequent popups. However, it can only solve your problem temporarily. Nonetheless, you must try this out using the following steps.

1. Press the ‘Windows’ key and the ‘R’ key together. This will launch the Run dialog window. Type the following: taskschd.msc. After this, press the Enter key to open the Task Scheduler.
2. Next, you’ve to double-click on the ‘Task Scheduler’. This will prompt the ‘Task Scheduler’s Library’ to open. Once you’re inside the ‘Task Scheduler’, click on the ‘Microsoft’ folder. The folder will expand now. Click on the ‘Office’ option. 
3. Search for the “OfficeBackgroundTaskHandlerRegistration”. Click on this file and choose the ‘Action’ option. Double-click on it to disable the Task Handler.

3. Alter Deploying for Insider Builds

If you’re using the Office Insiders program, there’s another way to eliminate the pop-ups. All you need to do is to make some changes in the deployment techniques of the Insiders build. Although there’s no particular reason why the pop-ups get affected by this change in the Insider program.

To make these changes, you need to follow these instructions:

1. Press the ‘Windows’ keys and the ‘R’ key to launch the Run window. Type ‘ control update’ and the ‘Windows Update’ screen will appear. 
2. Search for the ‘Update Settings’ option and click on the ‘Advanced’ options.
3. Finally, move down to find the ‘Insider build’ and make changes in the deployment process. In case you’re on ‘Fast’, change it to ‘Slow’. Otherwise, it should be the other way round. 

However, in Windows 10, you’ll get the ‘Insider’ and ‘Monthly Channel’ option instead of ‘Fast’ and ‘Slow’ options. 

4. Operate officebackgroundtaskhandler.exe as Administrator

Running the officebackgroundtaskhandler.exe  as an administrator can resolve these random pop-ups issue. However, there can be potential security associated with this technique. So, you should try this solution only when you have tried the previous methods. 

Follow these steps to run officebackgroundtaskhamdler.exe as Administrator:

1. At first, visit the C:\ Program Files (x86) \ Microsoft Office \ root \ file. Then, find the Office16 folder and click to open it.  
2. After this, right-click on the officebackgroundtaskhandler.exe. From there, choose the ‘Properties’ option. 
3. Find the ‘Compatibility’ tab. Go to ‘Settings’  and you’ll find the ‘Run this program as an Administrator’. Click on the checkbox present beside this option. 
4. Finally, click on ‘Apply’ to save the changes that you just performed. 

Thus, you can avoid frequent popups from the Office Background Task Handler effectively by following this method. 

Conclusion

Random Office Background Task Handler pop up can obstruct your programs and operations frequently. Although they won’t have any adverse impact on any of the files and applications. But, to ensure the uninterrupted functioning of programs, you must remove them permanently.

We’ve provided some easy solutions to successfully get rid of such Office pop-ups. Most of these solutions are aimed at permanently removing the pop-ups except solution 2.