What is Officevirt.exe? Safe or Virus, Uses, Error & Fix it

Officevirt.exe is an executable application and is a part of the Microsoft Office 2010 Click-to-Run program developed by Microsoft Incorporation. It comes with Microsoft Office 2010 and is not a virus or malware.

Officevirt full form is Microsoft Office Click-to-Run Virtualization Handler 

What is it & its uses

MS-Office Click-to-Run Virtualization Handler provides Internet users the option of downloading, installing, and updating the Microsoft Office 2010 application.

It uses online streaming to allow users to use Office 2010 first hand without even completely downloading it first. So while a part of the office 2010 can be used by the user via streaming, the remaining is downloaded in the system background.

MS-Office Click-to-Run Virtualization Handler also uses “virtualization technology” provided by Microsoft and stores Office 2010 in the virtual drive created for the system. This exists separately in your computer from the other system drives.

Click-to-Run’s biggest advantage is that it prevents MS-Office 2010 from crashing while it is being used online.

You may also want to learn how to open ms word using run command.

File size & location

The average file size of Officevirt.exe is 77.7 KB on Windows operating systems including 10 and earlier versions. The location path to Officevirt.exe application is C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\microsoft shared\Virtualization Handler\

In some Windows versions, it is located in C:\Program Files\Common Files\microsoft shared\Virtualization Handler\ folder. 

Is Officevirt.exe safe or virus?

Officevirt.exe is a legitimate application by Microsoft. However, if a malicious program assumes a similar name, then there are two ways to detect it:

• If the suspected file is not in the Virtualization subfolder of the C:\Program Files folder.
• If it is not digitally signed by Microsoft Corporation.

Common Errors

If you downloaded Microsoft Office 2010 online, then it might be possible that Officevirt.exe keeps running in the background and consume CPU resources. This usually happens when you open MS Office.  And the Officevirt.exe won’t terminate even after you close the MS Office, in that case, you will have to use Task Manager to terminate it.

Some common errors encountered with officevirt.exe are:

• “This product must be installed to Q: Ensure that Q: is unused and try again”.

Where Q drive is the system drive for virtual applications and cannot be accessed from My Computer.

• ” Microsoft Office Click-to-Run has stopped working.” 

How to remove it?

There are two ways to remove officevirt.exe:

• Uninstalling Microsoft Office 2010 Click-to-Run from the “Add or Remove Program” section of the Control Panel.
• Using a third-party Uninstaller like Revo Uninstaller.

Once the above application removed then officevirt.exe won’t consume CPU resources.