How do I get rid of the ugly decor in the title bar of my Microsoft Office Applications?

Option 1:

File Tab

General

under "Personalize your copy of Microsoft Office"

"Office Background" change to "No Background"

Option 2:

File Tab

Account

"Office Background" change to "No Background"

NOTE

Try first in Microsoft Word. I've seen some odd bugs reported that it doesn't show up in some of the other applications until you try it in Word first.

IF None of the above work - try this fix

This assumes you have Admin privledges

  1. Open your Registry Editor (run regedit.exe)

  2. Go to the Key “HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\15.0\ Common\General”.

  3. On the right hand side, look for the DWORD “DisableBackgrounds” (If it doesn't exist, create it)

  4. Set it as 1 to disable all backgrounds completely.

NOTE: In theory, setting to 0 will bring the menu back to allow you to select background/no background in Office and not having the key at all makes the menu not appear. Apparently results from doing this are inconsistent, though.

  1. Exit the Registry Editor

May need to restart your computer.