Andy M

I ran into an issue where the Window search service would constantly crash. The Event viewer showed the error below, and the crashdumps folder has a ton of SearchProtocolHost.exe.21580.dmp files. Faulting application name: SearchProtocolHost.exe, version: 7.0.9600.19660, time stamp: 0x5e4586a5 Faulting module name: mso20win32client.dll, version: 0.0.0.0, time stamp: 0x5e8a785b Exception code: 0x0241938e Fault offset: 0x00196a44 Faulting process id: 0x24a4 Faulting application start time: 0x01d617e35d974e4f Faulting application path: C:\windows\sysWow64\SearchProtocolHost.exe Faulting module path: C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Office16\mso20win32client.dll Report Id: b5c9d48f-83d6-11ea-80fa-000c290a7afd Faulting package full name:  Faulting package-relative application ID:  Analyzing the crash dumps pointed to MSPST32.DLL but none of the users had PSTs loaded. I found this article , but it did not resolve the issue. Eventually the f...

I have been dealing with an issue where a user's outlook would switch to online mode at random. The only way to resolve the issue was to log the user out of the computer and back in. Re-creating the account resolved the issue, but it came back the next day. Procmon and ProcExp didn't point to any clear causes. Eventually I was able to find the root cause by looking at the permissions of the mailboxes. The two mailboxes had Full Access to each other and auto mapping (never use auto mapping!) was enabled. This resulted in a situation where the mailboxes were fighting for who would be the primary mailbox, and who would be the secondary. Removing the permissions resolved the issue and both mailboxes worked correctly inside of Outlook. 

Just ran into an issue where Office apps would not open any documents saved in my OneDrive folder.  I would get the "Starting..." screen and then it would just close. Opening those same files from other locations like the desktop worked fine. The event log had some errors, but they didn't really point to a specific item: SettingSyncHost (14848) An attempt to open the file "C:\windows\system32\edbtmp.log" for read / write access failed with system error 5 (0x00000005): "Access is denied. ".  The open file operation will fail with error -1032 (0xfffffbf8). SettingSyncHost (14848) {9842A2DC-6CA6-48E2-924F-3ECFD7461AD8}: Database recovery/restore failed with unexpected error -1216. SettingSyncHost (14848) Unable to create a new logfile because the database cannot write to the log drive. The drive may be read-only, out of disk space, misconfigured, or corrupted. Error -1032. Running ProcMon revealed that Excel and Word did not have access to %l...

This guide will show you how to force add-ins to load in Office every single time. We will also prevent users and office from disabling/enabling add-ins*. *Outlook 2016* will sometimes disable add-ins any way, but we will apply a workaround for this. At the end of the guide, the add-ins you configure will look like this: Getting the ClassID of an add-in Find the ClassID of the Add-in. This is found in: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office\Outlook\Addins HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office\Outlook\Addins HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\WOW6432Node\Microsoft\Office\application name\Addins HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\WOW6432Node\Microsoft\Office\application name\Addins It is usually in a format similar to Application.OutAddin Enforcing add-ins  We will now create a GPO that will enable or disable the add-ins that we configure. Create a GPO called Office Enforced Add-ins *Depending on the importance(compliance, auditing, etc) of this Add-in it migh...

I ran into a strange issue today where Word and Excel would not open files on a user's desktop. Accessing them through regular share paths (\\server\share) would work, but DFS paths would not (\\company.com\share). The fix was adding the domain to the IE intranet sites. Create a new GPO Enable User Configuration/Policies/Administrative Templates/Windows Components/Internet Explorer/Internet Control Panel/Security Page/ Site to Zone Assignment List On the table enter Value name: \\company.com\* Value: 1