Outlook 365 crashing on Server 2016

Question

Three terminal servers all with the same error today, all using Microsoft Office 365 and Server 2016:

“The required file react-native-win32.dll cannot be found in your path. Install Microsoft Outlook again.”

“Microsoft Outlook has stopped working”

“A problem caused the program to stop working correctly. Please close the program.”

A quick repair, a full repair, even uninstalling, rebooting and installing again didn’t fix the issue. On one server I uninstalled all of the recent security patches and rebooted, but no change.

I rolled it back to 5th December 2024 using the command below and it seems to be stable again:

cd %programfiles%\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\ClickToRun
officec2rclient.exe /update user updatetoversion=16.0.18227.20152

Answer 1

Microsoft say they've fixed this issue.

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/officeupdates/current-channel#version-2412-january-16

Version 2412: January 16

Version 2412 (Build 18324.20194) Office Suite

• We fixed an issue where apps would exit unexpectedly when running on Windows Server 2016.

https://www.techradar.com/pro/microsoft-has-fixed-an-incredibly-annoying-outlook-crash-issue?utm_source=flipboard&utm_content=topic/windowsserver

Answer 2

This also made us go into the M365 admin settings and select a more conservative app release schedule option from "current". Rollback does solve this temporarily, but when you have a fully locked down Terminal Server setup where you whitelist everything you want people to run etc, prevent scripts from running and prevent access to the protected OS areas, any kind of remediation is always "fun" if automations fail. I suspect that just going into M365 settings and selecting a slower release schedule will roll back the version - within 24 hours or so anyway...

Answer 3

Hello AlexLeadingEdge,

Hope you all are doing well.

I wanted to provide an update based on the information you've shared. It appears that the issue in question is a known one, as detailed in the attached documentation. Please kindly refer this: Classic Outlook and Microsoft 365 applications crashing on Windows Server 2016 or Windows Server 2019 - Microsoft Support****

Requesting you to check the documentation for more detail's information.

As a workaround, kindly follow the below: To work around the issue, you can revert to the prior Version 2411 (Build 18227.20162): 

1. Open a Command Prompt in Administrator context.
2. Type or paste the two commands into the Command Prompt window and press Enter after each:
   • cd %programfiles%\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\ClickToRun
   • officec2rclient.exe /update user updatetoversion=16.0.18227.20152
3. To prevent Office updating back to the latest build you can turn off updates by clicking File, Office Account, Update Options, Disable Updates.
4. Put a reminder on your calendar for February 11th to re-enable updates.  Or check back on this Known Issue in case it is addressed sooner.

The builds to revert are taken from the Update History page, for more information please go to Update history for Microsoft 365 Apps (listed by date).

If you have any questions or need further assistance, please feel free to reach out to us. Thank you very much for your valuable time and your cooperation.

Sincerely,

Nafis Iqbal Shuvo

Answer 4

Microsoft is aware of the issue and actively investigating the cause.

The problem is a failure in Windows to resolve an export in reactive-native-win32.dll on certain Windows Server OS versions (bitness does not matter) which unfortunately has resulted in binding to fail, which can result in fatal errors or crashes. There is no switch/key to avoid the code effected as it is in delay-loaded-DLL context stubs, and not a specific feature.

At this time, rolling back to the prior update version is suitable to resolve the issue as you mentioned. That is the recommended resolution at this time. Microsoft is working to provide a better solution as soon as possible. If you choose to rollback and have problems, please contact Microsoft Support, we will be happy to assist.

This is being investigated as a high impact incident and we hope to have more answers soon.

Richard Taylor

Office Core Escalation Team

Microsoft Enterprise Support

Answer 5

I have the same issue. Unfortunately, rolling back using the command line doesn't do anything: it returns immediately without displaying anything and the problem persists. It may be because I'm using the 32-bit version of Office which I need since some 32-bit apps communicate with it.

I hope Microsoft fixes this issue quickly because email on my server is hosed!

Uninstall Office 365, reboot the server, reinstall Office 365, then use the rollback command.

I found one server didn't respond to the rollback command until this process was done.