Rescan needed every restart - Office & Start Icons

[turner.jessie97]

Hi all,

I came accross Tweaking.com's "Windows Repair" because I was having problems installing Office 365. At one point, I tried opening some of the setup files manually, and I was told I did not have permission to open that file. Also, I had noticed some of my Start icons went missing and were not updated with more current uses. However, I did manage to install Office 365 and run it perfectly after the third time I used Windows Repair. For the other two attempts, I used it, restarted, then installed Office. It was all good until the next restart. Now I used Windows Repair, and installed without restarting. It was good for about 3 or 4 reboots. Again, the icons are gone in my Start Menu, and Office will say "Something went wrong. We couldn't start your program. Please try again later." Also, after using WR, a CMD box will sometimes flash on the screen. I don't understand why. Is it some sort of virus activity?

Any tips?
I followed all the instructions, did all the optional steps, both in Safe Mode with Networking, and normal mode. The problem persists.
By the way, I am running a 64-bit version of Windows 7 Ultimate, and my Office 365 is also the x64 version, as I could not install the 32-bit version for whatever reason.


Thank you!

[Shane]

Have you done a chkdsk on the drive for bad sectors yet?

If not please do and post the log for me. Open a cmd.exe as administrator and put in
chkdsk c: /r

Hit enter, it will say it cant while the drive is in use and would you like to do it at next boot, hit Y and then enter. Now reboot and chkdsk should start before windows loads. This scan will take a while. Once it is done windows will reboot and the results will be in the event viewer, post those results for me

Shane

[turner.jessie97]

I had done it before, and I believe that 94 reparse was there before too.



Checking file system on C:
The type of the file system is NTFS.

A disk check has been scheduled.
Windows will now check the disk.                         

CHKDSK is verifying files (stage 1 of 5)...
350720 file records processed.                                         
File verification completed.
2042 large file records processed.
0 bad file records processed. 
2 EA records processed.
94 reparse records processed.

CHKDSK is verifying indexes (stage 2 of 5)...
427106 index entries processed.
Index verification completed.
0 unindexed files scanned.
0 unindexed files recovered. 

CHKDSK is verifying security descriptors (stage 3 of 5)...
350720 file SDs/SIDs processed. 
Cleaning up 7426 unused index entries from index $SII of file 0x9.
Cleaning up 7426 unused index entries from index $SDH of file 0x9.
Cleaning up 7426 unused security descriptors.
CHKDSK is compacting the security descriptor stream
38194 data files processed.
CHKDSK is verifying Usn Journal...
34085544 USN bytes processed.
Usn Journal verification completed.

CHKDSK is verifying file data (stage 4 of 5)...
350704 files processed.
File data verification completed.

CHKDSK is verifying free space (stage 5 of 5)...
41861360 free clusters processed.
Free space verification is complete.
Correcting errors in the master file table's (MFT) BITMAP attribute.
Correcting errors in the Volume Bitmap.
Windows has made corrections to the file system.

488282111 KB total disk space.
320217276 KB in 235021 files.
153540 KB in 38197 indexes.
0 KB in bad sectors.
465855 KB in use by the system.
65536 KB occupied by the log file.
167445440 KB available on disk.

      4096 bytes in each allocation unit.
 122070527 total allocation units on disk.
  41861360 allocation units available on disk.

Internal Info:
00 5a 05 00 49 2b 04 00 3d 95 07 00 00 00 00 00  .Z..I+..=.......
b0 29 00 00 5e 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  .)..^...........
00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  ................

Windows has finished checking your disk.
Please wait while your computer restarts.

[Shane]

Ok good, I wanted to make sure there was no bad sectors

0 KB in bad sectors.

Looks like it also fixed a few problems with the file system. Now that those are fixed how are things now?

Shane

[turner.jessie97]

They remain the same. The Start icons are not there, and Office will crash upon opening. "Something went wrong. We couldn't start your program. Please try starting it again." - These were fixed by WR before, but they came back after a few reboots.
And the CMD keeps flashing too. Avast says it is C:\Windows\SysWow64\cmd.exe, but it doesn't accuse it of being malicious.

[Shane]

Do me a fav and grab my technicians toolbox
http://www.tweaking.com/content/page/tweaking_com_technicians_toolbox.html

In the program go to network tools and then open netstat, once open right click on the list and save the list to a txt file.

Then close netstat and open processes from the menu on the left, when that opens right click on the list and save it to a txt file for me and post the 2 txt files so i can take a look

Reason why I want the netstats is I have had a few infection machines from customers where cmd.exe and notepad.exe had been infected with a virus, and because they are normal windows files none of the av's would flag it. But I noticed that both of them where making connections to the internet, something they cant normally do, which means it was the virus doing it.

So netstats in the program will tell me each program that is making a network connection.

Shane

[turner.jessie97]

Alright, done. Both files are attached.

[Shane]

Ok great Nothing looks out of line there and nothing stands out that looks like an infection, so we can rule that out for now

So now lets see if we can get an error code or message to work with, try office again and when you get the error go to the event viewer and see if there is anything there about it, if there is post a screen shot of it.

Shane

[turner.jessie97]

There isn't anything. The most recent sources are: Security-SPP, igfxCUIService1.0.0.0, and Winlogon.

[Shane]

OK, can you post a screen of the error itself when you get it when trying to open office?

Shane

[turner.jessie97]

Absolutely. There you go.

[Shane]

I am still using office 2007 and have no plans on going to the newer ones lol

So I dont have much use with the newer versions. So i did some searching and found that this is a very common problem. Lets try some of things I found, if you havent already and see if it helps.

First it looks like there is an office update that can cause this problem, might explain why you can get it to work and then it stops working later, if updates are auto installing then it would make sense that the update is installing and breaking it.
http://new.office-watch.com/2014/office-2013-install-bug/

I also found the page of the current known issues and workarounds
https://support.office.com/en-gb/article/Office-365-known-issues-6b380978-84ce-49af-be5d-f7cda0fe28f9?CorrelationId=8dea0894-bfac-4466-8034-68c64d25764d&ui=en-US&rs=en-GB&ad=GB

Lets see if that first link and what it says does the trick

Shane

[turner.jessie97]

I had the 2010, and as part of trying to get it to work, I uninstalled it. My brother at the time was working in a company that gave me a discount for the key. I have no idea where that is now, and can't reinstall it.


Anyway, so I've tried those before - I have the second link bookmarked. lol
I can't reinstall Office unless I use WR first. If I don't, at around 90-93%, it will say "Background installation ran into a problem." And many articles on the internet suggest disabling Print Spooler, I did, but to no avail.
And also, the Start icons thing. Right after using WR, I can type anything and it will show up. Say, if I type in "paint," I can just click and open it. Now, even if I type in "paint", all I get is some sort of search, but not the program. I have to manually go to it (All Programs>Accessories), and that applies to any and every program. Finally, the Office shortcut there appears to be empty. Since WR has that "Repair Start Menu Icons Removed by Infections", I'm guessing it's something bigger than just an Office issue.

I don't know if this helps, but another reason why I downloaded WR was because I had been messing with permissions and stuff, so I wanted something to reset it. I don't know if in the process, I made my computer more vulnerable.

[Shane]

Try this, do what you did before, WR in safe mode, all repairs, reboot and install office. Once it is working go in right away and disable updates for it. Lets see if it is an update that might be causing it, or if any updates have installed at all.

As for the start menu search that might be just another problem, see if this fixes that (If it does I should see about adding this to the repair)

C:\Users\Your name\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\1033\
And delete the file StructuredQuerySchema.bin

Shane

[turner.jessie97]

Now it installed okay, but it will crash when I try to open it. However, this time, there's something in the Event Viewer:

Faulting application name: WINWORD.EXE, version: 15.0.4717.1000, time stamp: 0x5523bac1
Faulting module name: msvcrt.dll, version: 7.0.7601.17744, time stamp: 0x4eeaf722
Exception code: 0xc0000005
Fault offset: 0x000099e4
Faulting process id: 0xa94
Faulting application start time: 0x01d0a305fd15eb34
Faulting application path: C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office 15\root\office15\WINWORD.EXE
Faulting module path: C:\Windows\syswow64\msvcrt.dll
Report Id: 3b9b6d0c-0ef9-11e5-9c42-a5b4bb32145b

Faulting application name: EXCEL.EXE, version: 15.0.4719.1000, time stamp: 0x552cf4af
Faulting module name: msvcrt.dll, version: 7.0.7601.17744, time stamp: 0x4eeaf722
Exception code: 0x80000001
Fault offset: 0x000099e4
Faulting process id: 0x1388
Faulting application start time: 0x01d0a3060c6322d2
Faulting application path: C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office 15\root\office15\EXCEL.EXE
Faulting module path: C:\Windows\syswow64\msvcrt.dll
Report Id: 4c57cece-0ef9-11e5-9c42-a5b4bb32145b

[turner.jessie97]

And also this:

Fault bucket , type 0
Event Name: APPCRASH
Response: Not available
Cab Id: 0

Problem signature:
P1: WINWORD.EXE
P2: 15.0.4717.1000
P3: 5523bac1
P4: msvcrt.dll
P5: 7.0.7601.17744
P6: 4eeaf722
P7: c0000005
P8: 000099e4
P9:
P10:

Attached files:
C:\Users\Nando\AppData\Local\Temp\1517109.cvr
C:\Users\Nando\Documents\SEMO\SYLLABI.docx
C:\Users\Nando\AppData\Local\Temp\CVR2134.tmp.cvr
C:\Users\Nando\AppData\Local\Temp\WER26C2.tmp.WERInternalMetadata.xml

These files may be available here:
C:\Users\Nando\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\WER\ReportArchive\AppCrash_WINWORD.EXE_f297d1eb755478a438ab89662cae326ff7ccd5e_106f2da7

Analysis symbol:
Rechecking for solution: 0
Report Id: 3b9b6d0c-0ef9-11e5-9c42-a5b4bb32145b


I don't know if this helps, but a while ago, my Flash wouldn't work in any browser (IE, Firefox or Chrome) unless I opened it with the "Run as Administrator" checked. That's when I started messing with permissions.

UPDATE: Two reboots later, the Start Menu icons thing happened again. And Windows Update has completely vanished from Start Menu.

[Shane]

msvcrt.dll is the c++ runtime, but I noticed something odd.

You are on 64bit windows, office is installed in C:\Program Files and not C:\Program Files (X86) which means it is the 64bit version of office.

Since it is the 64 bit version it should be pulling the 64bit version of the c++ runtime (msvcrt.dll) from the system32 folder not the syswow64 folder, the syswow64 folder is for 32 bit.

You said you couldnt install the 32bit version of office? I wonder if that might be where the problem is, something to do with the 32bit side of things and things not pointing to the right spot in the registry.

As a test have you tried creating a new user account and see how it does from another profile?

This test would at least tell me if the problem is in the hkey_current_user section of the registry.

Shane

[turner.jessie97]

I created a new account and tried opening it. This time it won't show in the Event Viewer. Same crash, though.

[Shane]

Then I think it has something to do with the c++ runtimes or .net

You said you couldnt install the 32 bit version, what happen when you tried?

Shane

[turner.jessie97]

So, Office 365 uses an online installation thing. At first, there's this orange/red box that says "Getting things ready." Once it hits 100%, it opens a new window. Later on, I found it to be "FirstRun.exe", that I found in the Office folder. However, whenever I use the 32-bit install file, this window crashes. I can manually open it (only if I click "Run as ADM") and finish the installation, but then Office will crash upon opening. A different crash than the x64 version. It says the program stopped working and that Windows is looking for a solution online. With this one, I get to see the blank document once it crashes, unlike the x64 crash where it shows an Office window. I'm sorry if that's not clear.

[Shane]

If Microsoft didnt have 10,000+ programmers I think their error messages would be a lot easier to work with lol

In this case, being a programmer myself, this all sounds like files that office relies on are messed up. (c++ run times files, .net runtimes and so on)

These are normally already on the system and not part of the main program but instead the program makes calls to them. So when they are messed up the main program cant even run correctly to show any proper error message.

What makes it worse is that anything made by MS will use and depend on a ton of files and settings on the system so finding the cause becomes a huge pain in the butt.

So we could start shooting in the dark and try a few things, like ripping out .net and reinstalling it fresh, or also redoing all the c++ run times and registry settings.

We could also use process monitor to watch what files office is hitting to give us a better idea of where to look.
https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb896645.aspx

I know how to use that myself and is how I trace things down, but it isnt the easiest tool to use and understand.

Shane

[turner.jessie97]

Should I uninstall .NET and C++, or just .NET?
By the way, I tried getting a log file from ProcessMonitor, but it was 170Mb, so I couldn't attach it. Maybe I need more instructions on that one.

Thank you for your diligence. It's been a pain in the butt, for sure.

[Shane]

Reinstalling them can help as the install would repair some things, some of the files came preinstalled though, so going to be a hard one.

I am in the middle of moving to our new place so over the next week I am going to be slammed, so sorry ahead of time that I wont be answering very fast!

Shane

[turner.jessie97]

I uninstalled both .NET and C++, and then ran WR. After restarting, Windows Update reinstalled .NET and C++ again. Four restarts later, it's still good. Office is working, and so are the icons in the Start Menu. I'll give it a few days before posting solved, just to make sure. Thank you for your suggestions and patience, Shane!

[Shane]

Outstanding

Let me know how it goes after more time has past.

Shane