Bad Microsoft Update Crashes Outlook for Many Users

We’re hearing reports of 100,000’s of Microsoft Outlook users worldwide, all experiencing a problem with the program crashing on launch. 

There are two workarounds:

1. Run Outlook in safe mode. 

While clicking on the shortcut to Outlook, hold down your CTRL-key. It will prompt with “Do you want to start Outlook with safe mode?”. Click Yes. Please note that you’ll not have any plugins, and Outlook may appear differently than you’re used to. If this is a problem, try #2 or wait until Microsoft rolls out a long term fix.

2. Uninstall the specific Outlook update causing the issue.

This is technical. If you’re not technically inclined, or not local administrator, try #1 or wait until Microsoft rolls out a long term fix.

Open a command prompt as an administrator. 

Run the following commands:

cd “C:Program FilesCommon Filesmicrosoft sharedClickToRun”

officec2rclient.exe /update user updatetoversion=16.0.12827.20470

It will show a progress bar and then complete. Launch Outlook now.

UPDATE: Per Microsoft’s latest tweet @ 12:17 PM PST, they’re rolling out a fix that should automatically apply and mitigate the issue they caused. 

This issue is another Microsoft Update blunder to add to the books. What’s worse is Microsoft sidesteps traditional ways to administer Windows Updates by allowing Microsoft Office products to update themselves (vs. managed through the Windows Update platform IT people usually tightly control).

We hope this helped. Please reach out to us here if you have any questions.