Microsoft has again released a bad patch for Microsoft Office and it’s particularly embarrassing.
The December 2015 patch called KB 3114409 was supposed to stop a problem where Outlook 2010 started in Safe Mode.
Instead the patch did the reverse … it forced Outlook 2010 into Safe Mode. Oh dear.
Note: this applies to Outlook 2010 for Windows only – not any other version of Outlook.
Last month there were other problems with Outlook patches.
So two months in a row, customers are left confused and wondering what happens in the much ballyhooed Microsoft testing labs.
The faulty December 2016 patch was eventually withdrawn, but not before it was pushed out to customers.
If you were lucky enough to miss out on the update, there’s nothing you have to do.
If you received KB 3114409 and can start Outlook 2010 normally then there should be no concern. You can leave the patch installed.
But if Outlook 2010 now starts up in Safe Mode (there’s a warning when it starts and the title bar says ‘Safe Mode’) you’ll have to uninstall the patch. Do that from the list of installed updates in Windows. At the bottom of the KB 3114409 page there are detailed instructions for finding and removing the patch.
