Microsoft is actively investigating this problem and will hopefully have a fix for this problem in the very near future.
This afternoon on July 15, 2020, Apheus became aware of a problem some users were experiencing when trying to open Outlook. The problem seems to come from a faulty update in Microsoft Office 365. Utilizing the Microsoft forums, we were quickly able to determine that there was indeed an active problem with Microsoft Outlook.
From what we have seen, when trying to load Outlook, the app immediately crashes with no recourse. When trying to reopen the app, it prompts the user to start in safe mode, which immediately crashes. Again, there is no recourse or remediation available. We attempted to perform a fix by reinstalling the Office software, which DID NOT fix the issue. We performed both the quick fix and fully downloading the software. Neither solution has worked. We performed a repair on the user’s PST file thinking that it was a corrupt profile. That was not the case.
We have also discovered that manually placing Outlook into safe mode using the Run app. Outlook opens in safe mode by providing the following command:
outlook.exe /safe
In the meantime, we have been actively pursuing our own solutions, which requires each machine to perform a manual downgrade to a previous version of Microsoft Office. From a administrative command prompt, we are running the following commands:
cd %programfiles%\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\ClickToRun
Followed by:
officec2rclient.exe /update user updatetoversion=16.0.12827.20470
Please be patient while Microsoft fixes this problem.