April updates for Office 2016, Office 2013 and 2010

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Here’s all the security and general bug fixes for April, aimed at Office 2016, Office 2013 and Office 2010 for Windows.

Most customers will have their Office updated automatically unless you’re one of the cautious who wait a little while to see if there’s any bugs in the bug fixes. See Why updating Office is like the Kobayashi Maru a ‘no win scenario’

Update side-effects

This month’s updates come with warnings about possible side-effects, just like a vaccination!

“ Some Office files, templates, and add-ins can be manipulated to harm your computer. After you install the April 2021 security updates for Office, your computer might display a notification and disable some of these files, even if the files were originally obtained from Microsoft. For more information about this issue and how to re-enable the disabled content, see KB5001196. “

Office 2013 and Office 2010 have other post-update troubles related to additional language packs.  See the Microsoft page for details.

Office 2016

The important fix is for a bug which makes an Office app stop responding. In this case because of a registry setting.  The fix is to install this KB4486672 update AND add a new registry key.

Key: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\16.0\General
Type: DWORD
Name: EnableAdvancedRegistryHangDetection
Data: 1

It’s not explained why the registry change is needed in addition to the patch. Surely the patch could update the registry?

There are also some security patches:

Outlook 2016          KB4504712

Word 2016              KB4493198

Excel 2016              KB4504721

Office 2016             KB4504724

Office 2016             KB4504722

Office 2013

Only security patches this month

Outlook 2016          KB4504712

Word 2016              KB4493198

Excel 2013              KB4504735

Office 2013             KB3178639

Office 2013             KB3178643

Office 2013             KB4504727

Office 2013             KB4504726

Outlook 2013          KB4504733

Word 2013              KB4493208

Office 2010

Only security patches this month

Outlook 2010          KB4493185

Word 2010              KB4493218

Excel 2010              KB3017810

Office 2010             KB2553491

Office 2010             KB2589361

Office 2010             KB4504739

Office 2010             KB4493215

Office 2010             KB4504738