Word 2016 crashing when clicking on the File menu

Anonymous
2017-04-26T15:33:52+00:00

We have noticed that since this month’s updates have installed Word 2016 is crashing when clicking on the File menu when certain (not all) documents are open. 

Our initial investigations have revealed that if we open a document that works (a fresh .docx or any .doc) and while Word is still open try and open a problematic .docx it works.  If we try and open a problematic .docx with Word closed first, accessing the File menu causes Word to crash.  What’s interesting is that it doesn’t seem to be all .docx files, only certain ones, but for the moment we haven’t identified any commonality between the problem files, in fact most are simple documents with no embedded pictures, macros etc.

Removing the Update for Word 2016 (KB3178720) resolves the issue.  However, if we install this update on its own on a VM, it does not cause the issue, so it appears to be caused by a combination of updates released this month rather than just this particular update, but removing this one update resolves the problem.

Microsoft 365 and Office | Word | For home | Windows

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  1. Anonymous
    2017-04-27T15:02:02+00:00

    We have the same behaviour in our organisation... Only uninstallation of the following Updates is helpful:

    KB3178720 -->word

    KB3178719 --> Excel

    KB3178699 -->PowerPoint

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  2. Anonymous
    2017-04-28T16:54:32+00:00

    We have seen the same with Word and Excel. This seems to only affect a handful of files so far. Other files are able to be opened up without issue. These files will cause the issue on ANY of the PC's (Win7 x64, Office 2016 32-bit) we've opened them on. As someone else said above, if you use "Ctrl + O" or "Ctrl + P", you can get into the "File" menu without crashing. The only selection that causes the crash appear to be the "Info" section.

    The first report of the issue was within a day of us installing April's patches for Windows and Office

    Currently, we have found two solutions:

    1. If we copy the contents from one of the broken files into a new file and it will then allow the "File" menu to be used without crashing Word/Excel.

    or

    1. Uninstall the updates KB3178720 and KB3178719 (We haven't seen any PPT files with an issue.)

    With the updates removed, the same file that would previously crash when clicking on "File" will work without any issue.

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  3. Anonymous
    2017-05-04T09:31:53+00:00

    We got an answer from Microsoft Support, that we should install the new Office Upates from May

    https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/office_sustained_engineering/2017/05/02/may-2017-non-security-office-update-release/

    But Installation of these updates did not resolved our Problem. Has anyone tried to install These updates?

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  4. Anonymous
    2017-05-18T18:23:00+00:00

    Hi,

    do you use Windows 7?

    If yes, we activated the compatibility mode for word and excel.

    C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Office\16\winword.exe or excel.exe, right click, tab compatibility mode, activate the checkbox (it doesn´t matter in which mode), save, close all office apps -> try it again.

    For us was this the solution, not removing the windows updates.

    Cheers,

    Michael

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  5. Anonymous
    2017-04-27T09:11:34+00:00

    Hi Jeraldine,

    No, we are using Kasperksy and we are running Windows 7 64-bit.

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