Excel 2016 C2R constant updates - even after disabled!

That led me to a lot of new clues!

"Use Task Manager to end the Click-to-Run task  OfficeClickToRun.exe"

So I can hack TaskManager...  I disabled the "Office Automatic Updates" task.
History shows it does not fail - guess it successfully starts the update program, and that fails.

Updates banner still shows in every Excel window. Must be some other evidence that one is pending.
There's Excel15.xlb (undecipherable binary), lots of OTele files (telemetry back home), excel.exe_Rules.xml (might be it, but almost every "update" value is "ignore", hard to guess which one to hack)...  

Aha! - C:\Program Files\Common Files\microsoft shared\ClickToRun\Updates shows:
16.0.7870.2038
16.0.7967.2139
Both of the updates I haven't been able to get.
Each one has 68 items, lots of dll files, etc. All the same files that are in the ClickToRun folder from the 26 March update - the last one that worked.

So why won't it actually install them? It always says it needs to "close some files" and when I say OK it downloads 16 MB of something, and tells me I can keep working. And that repeats over and over, but the updates are still sitting here unused.

So I hid the Updates folder - banner still appears. Maybe a full restart of Windows? Or maybe there is another cue? I'm betting the problem is in the "telemetry" back home - it is not telling the mothership that the files are here, and the 16MB is it checking in and being told they are not.

Maybe if I just copy the new files to the ClickToRun folder I'll have the update? But maybe still the banner as well?

At least we know it is not a download problem - all the files for two complete updates are already here. These "modern" apps are disgusting. My "Microsoft Store" was broken for like six months, and they couldn't make it work. One day it just came back by itself. Not a clue why.