14 DAY TRIAL // It looks like Microsoft has released another botched update, as the company has recently confirmed that Outlook 2010 users may experience app crashes after the November 2018 rollout.
The culprit is update KB4461529, which was released earlier this month for Microsoft Office users. A bug in this update is causing Outlook 2010 to crash or close right after launch, Microsoft says.
Only the 64-bit installation of Microsoft Outlook 2010 is impacted, and by the looks of things, no other version of the app seems to suffer from a similar bug.
The company says it’s currently investigating the issue and says users can switch to Outlook Web Access if they’re no longer able to launch Outlook 2010. And while the first workaround would obviously be the complete removal of the update, Microsoft says you shouldn’t do it.
The security update
For users who are trying to determine what’s causing the app crashes, Microsoft has also shared the event details recorded after the crash in the Application Event Viewer:
Faulting application name: OUTLOOK.EXE, version: 14.0.7224.5000, time stamp: 0x5bcb80d1
Faulting module name: olmapi32.dll, version: 14.0.7224.5000, time stamp: 0x5bcb809a
Exception code: 0xc0000005
Fault offset: 0x000000000001e4b9
Faulting process id: 0x3998
Faulting application start time: 0x01d47d3befb78cd8
Faulting application path: C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office14\OUTLOOK.EXE
Faulting module path: C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office14\olmapi32.dll
KB4461529 is a security update for Microsoft Outlook 2010 that was released on November 13, and according to the software giant, it resolves vulnerabilities that could allow an attacker to gain full rights on a vulnerable system.
The remote code execution flaw can be exploited with a specially crafted Office file, so if you do decide to remove this security update in order to restore Outlook 2010, you should avoid opening any files coming from sources you don’t trust.
There’s no ETA as to when a fix could land, but let’s just hope Microsoft won’t wait until the December Patch Tuesday cycle to ship it.