Office 2013 missing after June 11 Microsoft auto upates

I don't know which Windows Update caused the issue. I guess I honestly don't know IF Windows Update caused the issue, since apparently Microsoft decided it was a good idea to hide the Office update process under the banner of "click to run." Maybe there was a secret Office update that caused the problem. Maybe it was a combination of the two. All I know is what I saw on 3 separate computers (and what a few hundred other people have reported in this thread and others like it). Office was working fine, MS put out a batch of Windows updates (2957689, 2939576, 2957189, 2957503, 2957509, 2965788, 2800095, and 890830) on Patch Tuesday this week which initiated a reboot. After that reboot, no Office programs would launch. They all gave the same generic error message "Something went wrong, couldn't start your program, please try again, please try a repair." Both the quick repair and the online repair failed. System restore to the point created immediately before these updates did not help. Restoring to a point farther back in time might allow you to run an online repair. Failing that the official MS response in these threads is to uninstall (manually or with the Fix-it) and redownload/reinstall.

And that's where my issue lies. Yes, I want to get things going as fast as possible for productivity's sake. But when I have to kick a user off their computer for a couple hours while I re-download the entire Office suite, it kills their productivity and mine. I have 49 Win7/Office 13 computers under my control and so far 3 of them have this bug. I've fixed two. The other is in California (I'm in Ohio). They don't have admin rights and their connection is so slow that it will literally be faster to have them ship me their computer so I can do the reinstall and ship it back.

Susan has offered to help set up a support case, and that's awesome. If I get another broken one I will probably go that route. What I'm hoping to find is there's a quicker and easier fix (go here, delete this file, rename this file, tweak this registry key, hey look at that Office works again WITHOUT having to do a reinstall.)

So, how did you uninstall the causative update and what's the name/number of the update?

After uninstalling the update office works fine? Without systemrecovery, repair or reinstall?

I do not know which of the June Office updates did it, no. I just know what updates were applied at the same time as the Windows ones. And now that i have reinstalled Office and Disabled Office Updating everything is running fine on 3 computers that went down. They all have the full compliment of WINDOWS updates but are locked from updating Office and thus are at an early version number for Office. I am going to re-enable Office updates on one machine here in a little while and see how long it takes for it to update Office and how long it takes to crash. But it works fine with all Windows updates as long as Office does not apply the June Office updates. That tells me it is in the Office updates, but I have not isolated which one. One or more of the updates is misinterpreting things because like I said in another post, among my first symptoms was Office telling me that it now detected I was on a metered internet service and it was going to adjust the way it uploaded and downloaded to preserve as much of my allowed throughput as possible. I am not on a metered service. Never was. It only affected Office and nothing else. That also tells me that it is probably an Office update and not a Windows one or else I would have gotten that message with or without opening an Office program if it was a Windows universal update. But it was only in Office that I had any symptoms including that one.

I just figured this all out so I have not yet figured out if you can roll back to a previous version. I am going to find out though. And once Office went down completely, the only answer I had was to uninstall it (and make sure you use that FixIt program from MS to clean Office from the computer) and then reinstall. I only had just did a clean install of Windows 7 Pro 3 days ago and when I went to do a full backup of the clean install I cleaned the drive and that included getting rid of all but the last System Restore which was dated after the updates, so that was not an option. Like I said before, I am going the second best thing, and that is to get Office running reliably so everyone can get work done, and doing it without losing any previous work. So far, so good. I realize that not having to reinstall it would be best, but with the Click To Run version of installs you can start using it again within a couple minutes of cleaning it off the computer. So down time is minimal which is a good feature of this kind of install since you do not have to wait for an entire installation to get going again. I also had the foresight to save all of the files and registry entries that stored how I had Office set up. So once I did my install I put them all back and voila! Office is back exactly as it was before going down.

It is the best plan of attack I can see until this is fixed. BTW, there were a few dozen new files added to Office with the June Office update. I am thinking of manually applying the June update and see if I can add the files in steps so I can see what one(s) cause the problem. But if you go look at the June Office update you can see all the new (not updated but new) files that were added to your Office programs on the 10-11th.

As I said before, if you wish, email me any time you want and we can work on this together if you want and share our collective data. Or if you just want to ask or talk about any of this just email me. I can give you my phone number in an email if you decide you want to consult each other on this matter. The more we figure out, the more I can tell MS if/when they call me like they said they would.

Well, how did you uninstall the causative update and what's the name/number of the update?

After uninstalling the update office works fine? Without systemrecovery, repair or reinstall?

If anybody here is able to do what I did which resulted in getting Office back up and running smoothly, make sure that after you do, you disable the update feature in Office only. On the 3 machines I have fixed now, the Windows updates do not make a difference. It is only the Office updates. They all have the full number of Windows updates but I disabled the Office updates and the keep working. If I allow any to update to the June 10-11th Office update which takes Office to version 15.0.4569.1506 It causes unwanted symptoms. So I have experimented and found out through trial and error that it is one of the updates in Office that keeps taking Office down on certain machines, not the Windows 7 updates. And remember, to see what Office updates have been applied you have to open an Office program to look. Looking in Programs and Features at Installed Updates does not tell you. Office updates do not show there. So if that is what you are going by to see if Office has updated, you will not get the answer there. I can help more if you want to email me at the address I posted in my last message.

Thanks for sharing the information, but I'm trying to accomplish something a little different, and I think many people in a round-about way are looking for the same thing. Caps Lock for emphasis, not yelling: once Office crashes, I want a way to FIX it that DOES NOT INVOLVE completely removing it and reinstalling it.

I understand. But that does not seem possible right now. So I assumed being able to be productive was the next best thing and you can be with the reinstall and turning off the update feature for Office before it applies the June Office updates. That is what I am doing until they do find a fix for it. It only seems to affect certain machines too. Not everyone who has gotten the Windows or Office updates has crashed. So I am just getting them productive again until they figure it out.

**EDIT**: Don't worry about the CAPS lock thing. I just thought you were emphasizing it was Windows and not Office and I did same thing. I wanted to make sure that everyone knew which updates i was talking about each time I mentioned them. It is hard to find my email address if you or anyone wants to interact personally on this so I am putting it here so it is easy to find: caine0001 at hotmail.com (of course replace "at" with "@"). If I can provide any information to you or help with the Office update thing just email me at anytime you wish. I am having a lot of success getting machines back up and running with Office and not losing any work in the process. But, once again, I have to Disable Office updating to keep them from crashing again. Every machine can have all the June Windows updates, but not the June Office ones. I am going to experiment in a little while to see what happens if I Re-Enable Office updates on one machine. I want to see how long it goes before trying to update Office and if it crashes in the same way as before. it seems it is different symptoms on different computers to start out, but in the end they all uninstall Office or it simply stops working altogether. Anyway, email me if you wish.

**BTW** I received an email from Microsoft at about 2am EST time saying they have a ticket made up for me and would contact me within 4 hours. I have still to hear back from them, but if they do call I will post up anything they tell me. Sorry about the Editing but it was better than posting a whole new message.

You can always use a web portal or some other means to email.  Outlook is not the only way to send an email :-)

Since I'm not repro'ing this on Win7/Office 2010 it appears to be unique to 2013.

The two that I fixed ARE click-to-run. Office isn't listed under "Installed Updates" and there's a click-to-run service running on the computers. I would assume the third one I know about is the same, but it's in California on a very slow frame-relay connection and I'm in Ohio. Unless we can find a fix I'm planning to have them ship it to me so I can work on it.

And for clarity's sake: All OFFICE programs (for me: 2013 Pro) stopped working after a reboot which was prompted/forced by this week's round of WINDOWS updates.

For clarity's sake all Office updates took place at the same time as the WINDOWS updates so you have no way of knowing which one caused it. The Office ones are not listed in Control Panel> Programs and Features> Installed Updates. They are applies silently and the record of them is stored in any Office program under File> Account. Look over all the way to the right and note the number starting with the digits 15 and that number is a link which will tell you which updates have been applied to bring it up to that version number. With the June 10-11th updates for Office it brought it up to version 15.0.4569.1506. I have fixed 3 machines now and once I get Office running again, I go in and turn off the Update feature just for Office by clicking the Update Office button on the Account page in any Office program. That keeps it at the version it is when installed until they get this fixed. If it is allowed to update back to the June updates for Office it crashes again.  I do not know why it has different symptoms on different machines, but all 3 of my computers have all WINDOWS 7 updates installed and Office is working fine. I have disabled the Office updates though and am keeping it at the version 15.0.4433.1508. The original number for Office version was 15.0.4433.1506 I believe. So I got it turned off before it installed the Office June updates. If you have any more questions about how I got it fixed and am avoiding any other crashes or about the Office update feature for the Click To Run version of Office email me at the address I posted in the post before this one. But I  promise you, even though the update process is designed to be invisible and automatic to the end-user, you can see the log of all Office updates and Enable/Disable updating just for Office while not affecting updates for any other program or Windows itself.