COM and .NET errors after Office architecture migration

Symptoms

After you migrate Microsoft Office architecture from 32-bit to 64-bit, you experience errors if a COM application or a .NET Framework client is used. These possible errors include, but are not limited to, the following:

• TYPE_E_CANTLOADLIBRARY

• TYPE_E_LIBNOTREGISTERED

• TYPE_E_ELEMENTNOTFOUND

The errors usually occur if the COM application or .NET client is running as a 32-bit process.

Example

These errors might occur when the following code is run in 86-bit PowerShell:

$xl = New-Object -ComObject Excel.Application

$xl.Visible = $True

Cause

The errors are caused by orphaned registry subkeys that are created by the migration.

Resolution

To fix this problem, use either of the following methods.

Method 1: Delete orphaned subkeys automatically

To detect and remove the orphaned subkeys, run this script from the following GitHub location:

Office TypeLib Remediation

Method 2: Delete orphaned subkeys manually

If the PowerShell script from Step 1 doesn't delete the orphaned subkeys, you can also check for orphaned entries manually. The affected device might have orphaned subkeys that resemble the following example:

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\WOW6432Node\TypeLib\GUID\1.9\0\Win32

Note: In this example, GUID is a string that is specific to the subkey.

The subkey will have a value that points to a missing Office executable in the Program Files (x86) file path. For example:

C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Office\Root\Office16\EXCEL.EXE

There should also be an adjacent subkey that points to the correct 64-bit Program Files location.