Launchd Launch Agent to set Microsoft AutoUpdate preferences for Office for Mac 2011 to manually check for updates rather than automatically checking.

com.talkingmoose.OfficeAutoUpdate.plist

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
	<key>Label</key>
	<string>com.talkingmoose.OfficeAutoUpdate</string>
	<key>ProgramArguments</key>
	<array>
		<string>/bin/bash</string>
		<string>-c</string>
		<string>defaults write com.microsoft.autoupdate2 HowToCheck Manual ; defaults write com.microsoft.autoupdate2 LastUpdate -date 2001-01-01T00:00:00Z</string>
	</array>
	<key>RunAtLoad</key>
	<true/>
</dict>
</plist>

Installation instructions:

1. Download and place the com.talkingmoose.OfficeAutoUpdate.plist file in /Library/LaunchAgents.
2. Verify permissions are set to -rw-r--r-- root wheel (owner:root, group: wheel, permissions 644).

Notes: This launchd agent runs at every login for each user and sets his Microsoft AutoUpdate preferences to check manually for Office for Mac 2011 updates. Users can still check for updates using Help > Check for Updates in any Office application.

Setting each user's preferences is necessary because user preferences in ~/Library/Preferences/com.microsoft.autoupdate2.plist can override conflicting preferences in /Library/Preferences/com.microsoft.autoupdate2.plist.