Steps to save you from the recent Microsoft Outlook Update

On Tuesday, 7/14/2020, Microsoft released an update that may break your Microsoft Outlook! Many users are reporting that their Outlook opens and immediately closes back. Searching through event logs uncovers that Outlook crashed with error 0xc0000005. It seems that Microsoft has realized that the recently deployed update could be the source of this issue and is working to resolve this situation.

We have received error reports from several of our customers already and have created a step-by-step guide to help users recover from this botched update.

Solution 1 (recommended by Microsoft):
Until the patch is released, Microsoft is recommending that users use Outlook on the web or mobile clients for Android and iOS.

Solution 2 (recommended by CDML):
To check for the error:
1. Click on the Start Menu or the Windows Search (in the lower left corner)
2. Type Event Viewer and press Enter
3. Click on Windows Logs to expand the list
4. Click on Application to open the application log
5. Scroll through the log to find an Error level event from an Application Error source
6. Click on that event and note the error details to determine that OUTLOOK.EXE is the root of this error.
7. Optional – copy the error information for your records.
8. Close the Event Viewer

To fix the error:
Option 1 – Run Outlook in Safe Mode:
1. Do not use the Start Menu or other conventional ways to open Outlook.
2. Press the Windows key and the R key simultaneously (W-R)
3. In the resulting Run box type Outlook /safe and press Enter

Option 2 – Create an Outlook Safe Mode Shortcut:
1. Do not use the Start Menu or other conventional ways to open Outlook.
2. Click on the Start Menu or the Windows Search (in the lower left corner)
3. Type Outlook (do not press Enter)
4. Right-click on the resulting Outlook App from the list of matches
5. Select Open file location from the pop-up menu
6. A Windows File Explorer window will open to the Start Menu path with Outlook shortcut already selected (typically: C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs)
7. Right-click the selected Outlook short
8. Click Properties from the pop-up menu
9. Select the contents of the Target field and press Ctrl-C to copy it to the Clipboard (typically: “C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\root\Office16\OUTLOOK.EXE”)
10. Press the Cancel button to close the Outlook Properties window
11. Right-click on any empty space on your Desktop
12. On the pop-up menu click New
13. On the 2nd level pop-up menu click Shortcut
14. In the location of the item field paste the target path you copied in step 9.
15. After the path, add a space followed by /safe (i.e. “C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\root\Office16\OUTLOOK.EXE” /safe)
16. Click Next
17. Change the name to Outlook Safe Mode
18. Click Finish

Option 3 – Revert to the previous version of Outlook:
1. Press the Windows key and the R key simultaneously (W-R)
2. Type cmd and press Enter.
3. In the command line, simply type: cd “\Program Files\Common Files\microsoft shared\ClickToRun”
4. Press Enter to open the Microsoft Office ClickToRun folder.
5. Type officec2rclient.exe /update user updatetoversion=16.0.12827.20470 and press Enter.
6. A Microsoft Office Download and installation process will begin.
7. Type Exit and press Enter to close the Command Prompt
8. Wait for the Office Installation process to complete and reboot your PC.

If you don’t want to uninstall the recent updates or Outlook still won’t open after applying the aforementioned steps, please do not hesitate to schedule a support call with one of our technicians by any of the following methods:

• Click here to Book an appointment directly. 
• Visit our Support Center and open a trouble ticket in the Customer Portal. 
• Call us at 718-393-5343