MS Office crashing on startup

[h_kruger]

Word, Excel, etc. gives me a "has stopped working" error message.


Outlook gives me "The file ADVAPI32.dll is incompatible with Microsoft Outlook. Install Outlook again." though the dll in question does not exist on my computer.


I also randomly get the message "Microsoft Office SDX Helper has stopped working"


I did a complete removal/re-installation, it worked for a day, and then went right back to doing this.

Anyone have any idea what's causing this?

 

[sajunky]

Auto updating. Reinstall and block updates... if you can...

 

[Johnatan56]

Do you have two versions of office installed?

btw, found you reddit post:

https://www.reddit.com/r/microsoftoffice/comments/9ps5cj

Do you also have the latest windows service pack installed (think it's only SP1 on W7)?

 

[h_kruger]

Do you have two versions of office installed?

btw, found you reddit post:

https://www.reddit.com/r/microsoftoffice/comments/9ps5cj

Do you also have the latest windows service pack installed (think it's only SP1 on W7)?

I only have one Office installed, but I haven't been able to update to SP1 because the update hangs every time. The last time I tried it was on the "Do not turn off your computer" or similar message for about five hours. I had to hard reset and do a system restore. If this is the problem, do you have any advice on how to successfully install SP1?

Yeah, I've been trying to fix this for two days now, so... cross-posting a bit. Thanks for your help, btw.

 

[h_kruger]

Auto updating. Reinstall and block updates... if you can...

I'll try that, thanks!

 

[Drake2007]

See you posted on technet as well.

If all else fails dump MS Office and install LibreOffice.

 

[Arthur]

See you posted on technet as well.

If all else fails dump MS Office and install LibreOffice.

Rather sort out your machine - there's clearly something not right or standard. MS Office works fine on hundreds of millions of PCs. LibreOffice doesn't.

 

[Drake2007]

Rather sort out your machine - there's clearly something not right or standard. MS Office works fine on hundreds of millions of PCs. LibreOffice doesn't.

Well clearly MS Office doesn't work on the Op's PC.
I've seen it numerous times on other people's PC's when MS Office just decides to break.

And your solution is?

 

[h_kruger]

See you posted on technet as well.

If all else fails dump MS Office and install LibreOffice.

I did consider that, but once again, LibreOffice isn't compatible with pre-SP1. So if I have to figure out how to get SP1 to install correctly, I can probably just keep using MS Office.

 

[Johnatan56]

I did consider that, but once again, LibreOffice isn't compatible with pre-SP1. So if I have to figure out how to get SP1 to install correctly, I can probably just keep using MS Office.

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=5842
Offline download for it, have you tried it that way?

And if that doesn't work, you seriously need to consider a reinstall.

 

[h_kruger]

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=5842
Offline download for it, have you tried it that way?

And if that doesn't work, you seriously need to consider a reinstall.

I did, yes. I am considering it, but would like to leave it as a last resort.

I re-installed Office and turned off the updates as sajunky suggested. So far so good, I'm just waiting to see if it breaks again.

 

[Johnatan56]

I did, yes. I am considering it, but would like to leave it as a last resort.

I re-installed Office and turned off the updates as sajunky suggested. So far so good, I'm just waiting to see if it breaks again.

Do be careful doing so, the problem here is security updates, especially for your OS.
E.g. https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/security-updates/SecurityBulletins/2015/ms15-081 is an office exploit that you're not patched against.

I am very against most of sajunky's advice, e.g. his recommendation of never updating your anti virus, etc. as you can hopefully tell is a bad idea, though sometimes he does have those nuggets of gold. The not updating here is a case of "it works" but not factoring in the cost.

 

[h_kruger]

Do be careful doing so, the problem here is security updates, especially for your OS.
E.g. https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/security-updates/SecurityBulletins/2015/ms15-081 is an office exploit that you're not patched against.

I am very against most of sajunky's advice, e.g. his recommendation of never updating your anti virus, etc. as you can hopefully tell is a bad idea, though sometimes he does have those nuggets of gold. The not updating here is a case of "it works" but not factoring in the cost.

Thank you, I will keep this in mind. Hopefully I can manage to get SP1 installed and actually fix the problem. This is a bit of a band-aid solution.

 

[Venomous]

Uninstall office. Ensure to remove all traces from program files etc.
IE not a trace of office left.

Then do a clean reinstall.
Update before setting up outlook...

 

[h_kruger]

Uninstall office. Ensure to remove all traces from program files etc.
IE not a trace of office left.

Then do a clean reinstall.
Update before setting up outlook...

So does the conflict have something to do with Outlook, rather than the Service Pack?

 

[Venomous]

So does the conflict have something to do with Outlook, rather than the Service Pack?

No.
It's a general fault.
DL the installation files from MS. They'll be more up to date.

 

[h_kruger]

Thanks for the help, everyone.