Are you encountering freezes, crashes or installation problems in Microsoft Office? Here are a few ways to solve the problem.
You are using or trying to use Microsoft Office and encounter technical problems. Some features may not work properly, or one of the Office applications itself may crash or crash. You may be having trouble installing, activating, or signing in to Office. How can you solve the problem?
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One option is to do a repair of Office. If that doesn’t work, you may need to reinstall Office. But Microsoft can also help through a free program called Microsoft Support and Recovery Assistant. This utility, known as SaRA for short, scans your Office configuration and tries to fix specific problems.
The steps I describe here work with any desktop version of Office, whether on a subscription basis Microsoft 365 or the one-time license edition. I also use Office on Windows, so these tips apply to Windows 10 and 11.
Try repairing Office first. To do this, in Windows 10 or 11, go to Settings and then to Apps. Select the option for Apps & Features. Scroll through the list of apps until you see the entry for your version of Office. In Windows 10, click that item and select Change. In Windows 11, click the three-dot icon for that item and select Change (Image A†
Image A
A window will appear asking how you want to repair your Office programs. The Quick Repair option is the fastest and easiest, so select it first and then click the Repair button (Figure B†
Figure B
You will be prompted to start the repair, so click Repair at the prompt. Windows will then run the Office quick repair. After it’s done, open the Office application that’s giving you trouble and see if you can replicate the problem. If the error still exists, return to the Apps & Features screen and choose Repair for Office. This time, select the Online Repair option. Make sure you have a good internet connection and then click Repair again (Figure C†
Figure C
After the online repair is completed, open the troublesome Office application again and try to replicate the problematic behavior. If the problem persists, the next step is to uninstall and then reinstall Office. The downside of this is that you lose some customizations for Office and have to recreate them.
Make sure you have the media for Office or availability for the online resource, such as your Microsoft account page† Return to the entry for Office on the Apps & Features screen, select it and choose Uninstall. Click Delete again when prompted. You will be told that the program and its files will be removed. Click Delete to confirm (Figure D†
Figure D
After that, reinstall Office and run the misbehaving program to see if it behaves now. Whether or not you go through the uninstallation process and whether it resolves the issue, there is one more step you can take.
The free Microsoft Support and Recovery Assistant from Microsoft can sometimes find and fix certain problems in Office. Not all types of troubleshooting options are supported by the tool, so your experience with it will likely be hit and miss. But it’s still worth a try, especially if you’re having trouble installing or activating Office.
Browse to the SaRA product page and click the Download button to grab the program. Extract the downloaded ZIP archive and run the SaraSetup.exe file to install the tool. At some point during the installation, SaRA will ask you which app is giving you problems. Select Office or Outlook depending on the source of the problem. You can also opt for Advanced Diagnostics for a deeper analysis. Click next (Digits E†
Digits E
In the next screen, select the specific problem. Click next (Figure F†
Figure F
The tool will ask if this is the machine in question. Assuming this is the case, click Yes and then click Next. Log in to your account when prompted. The tool runs several checks to try and diagnose the problem. SaRA may ask you to take certain steps to assist in troubleshooting. Follow the directions.
If the tool is successful, it should ask if the problem has been resolved and present a form for you to fill out. Try replicating the issue again to confirm it’s resolved (Figure G†
Figure G
