M365 Changelog: Group Policy for LookUp and Translate in Visio 2021 LTSC

MC494735 – Note: This change only impacts Visio 2021 LTSC. If your organization is not using this version, you can disregard this message.

Microsoft Visio is announcing the retirement of the Translate and LookUp features for Visio 2021 LTSC.

With this group policy update Microsoft will give admins the ability to turn off these features.

The policy was rolled out on October 11, 2022, with the build number 16.0.14332.20387 and above.

You are receiving this message because your organization may be using the LookUp and Translate feature.

Admins will have the capability to turn off these features with the help of a group policy update. 

Installation Steps for Admins:

1. The policy should be located at ‘User Configuration > Administrative Templates > Microsoft Visio 2016 >Visio Options > Proofing > Turn off Research and Translation features in Visio. If the policy is not found here, you can download the ADMX/ADML file from here
2. Click the Download button and choose whether you want to download the 32-bit (x86) or 64-bit (x64) files, or both. For example, if you’re using the Office Customization Tool (OCT) to customize installations of the 64-bit version of Office, download the 64-bit (x64) files. If you just need the ADMX/AMDL files, you can download either the 32-bit (x86) or 64-bit (x64) files. The ADMX/ADML files are the same for both.
3. Click Next and choose where to save the files.
4. Go to the location where you saved the downloaded files and double-click the admintemplates executable (.exe) file and follow the instructions to extract the files to a location of your choosing.
5. Next, copy the Visio16.admx file to the C:\Windows\PolicyDefinitions folder and the Visio16.adml files to the corresponding locale folder (for example: Visio16.adml from the en-US folder to C:\Windows\PolicyDefinitons\en-US folder).

Steps to Run the Policy for Admins:

1. Using the Windows key + R, run the ‘gpedit.msc’ command.
2. The policy will be located under ‘User Configuration > Administrative Templates > Microsoft Visio 2016 >Visio Options > Proofing > Turn off Research and Translation features in Visio.
3. Set the policy to enable/disable.
4. Run 'gpupdate/force' on the command line to force group policy to update.