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Some Office applications are not responding

  • Article
  • Applies to:
    Office

Symptoms

Office applications stop responding in some common usage scenarios.

Cause

Starting in Microsoft Office 2013, the Office suite of applications takes advantage of hardware acceleration if the option is available. To do this, Office uses the graphics adapter that is installed on the computer. This causes Office applications to load and use graphics driver code. For systems that use an Intel graphics adapter, some versions of the Intel graphics driver have a heap corruption bug that causes Office applications to stop responding.

The following Intel graphics driver versions cause this problem.

Version
26.20.100.6951
26.20.100.6952
26.20.100.6998
26.20.100.6999
26.20.100.7000
26.20.100.7063

Resolution

Identify whether your computer has one of the affected Intel graphics drivers. To do this, follow these steps:

  1. In Control Panel, select Hardware and Sound > Device Manager.
  2. Expand the Display adapters item. If you have an Intel graphics adapter, the driver will appear in the list. If you see an Intel adapter, right-click the adapter, and then select Properties.
  3. On the Driver tab, review the information in the Driver Version field.

If you have one of the affected graphics driver versions, use one of the following options to fix the problem.

Option 1: Update the Intel graphics driver

The Intel graphics driver that contains the fix is version 26.20.100.7262. The best solution is to update the graphics driver to this version (or later). To do this, open the Driver tab in the adapter's properties dialog box, and then select the Update Driver button to search for an updated graphics driver.

Note

If you can't find an updated graphics driver, search for a driver update through your OEM website or through the Intel website.

Option 2: Update the Office version

Office has shipped a fix for specific Office versions. The fix will detect whether the computer has one of the affected Intel graphics drivers installed. If it does, Office will avoid using hardware acceleration. Instead, it will use a software rasterizer that is known as Windows Advanced Rasterization Platform (WARP).

The versions of Office that contain this fix are the following.

Release Version
1911 (November 2019) 16.0.12325.20120
1910 (October 2019) 16.0.12228.20364
1907 (July 2019) 16.0.11929.20516
1901 (January 2019) 16.0.11328.20492
Office Insiders 16.0.12406.20000

To fix the problem, update your Office installation.

Note

The fix in the Office versions won't work for users who have an Nvidia Optimus graphics adapter. For more information about how to work around this scenario, see the "Option 4: Nvidia Optimus" section.

Option 3: Manually disable hardware acceleration in Office

If you can't upgrade the Intel graphics driver or update Office to a version that has the fix, you can disable hardware acceleration through the Options dialog box. To do this, follow these steps:

  1. In any Office application, select File > Options.
  2. In the Advanced pane, select the Disable hardware graphics acceleration check box.
  3. Select OK.

Tip

If you choose this option, we recommend that you clear the Disable hardware graphics acceleration check box when you update the Intel graphics driver to version 26.20.100.7262 (or later). You should do this so that Office can run by using the best performance possible.

Option 4: Nvidia Optimus

This section is for Office users who have either of the following graphics adapters installed:

  • An Intel graphics adapter that has a version of the graphics driver that causes the problem
  • An Nvidia Optimus graphics adapter

For these users, updating Office to a version that has the fix will not help. This is because the Nvidia Optimus graphics adapter can indirectly load and use the faulty Intel graphics adapter. These users should follow the steps in the "Option 3: Manually disable hardware acceleration in Office" section to work around the issue.

Some computers have third-party software that dictates how the Nvidia Optimus driver operates. It might be possible to configure these computers not to use the Intel graphics adapter. Contact the third-party vendor for instructions about how to do this.

Third-party information disclaimer

The third-party products that this article discusses are manufactured by companies that are independent of Microsoft. Microsoft makes no warranty, implied or otherwise, about the performance or reliability of these products.