Wednesday, December 15, 2010

Bad Outlook 2007 Update KB-2412171 -- December 2010 Microsoft Patch Day

January 11, 2011 Update:  This patch has been re-released under the same KB number.  If you previously installed this patch you should update it again.  See http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2412171 for more information.



Bug Summary:
After installing patch KB-2412171 for Outlook 2007 SP2 delivered via Microsoft Updates on Tuesday, December 14 2010; several problems on multiple machines began happening.

UPDATE: Pass the salt please -- Outlook team at Microsoft admits to the bad patch.  (Which TOTALLY rocks, would sure like to see more ownership from team MS when problems come out of Redmond.)

  1. Performance while loading Outlook, or clicking any email folder/sub-folder or changing views was extremely sluggish, even on high performance workstations.
  2. Auto-archive options were missing entirely from the Properties page for any folder, also missing from the Mailbox Cleanup tool. (See screen-shots)
  3. Additionally severe system instability when certain other plug-ins are installed and running: the Franklin Covey Plan Plus for Outlook version 6 in particular began crashing badly.
  4. Users of Comcast and AT&T email services have reported that sending/receiving breaks with this patch.  Error 0x800CCC18 indicating SPA not working.
  5. Some users of outsourced Exchange services have also reported that outgoing emails fail to leave their Outbox.

Tested systems: Windows 7 x64 Professional and Ultimate, running Office 2007 Professional and/or Ultimate. Office 2007 Service Pack 2 installed. Tested with and without AntiVirus running - AV was not a factor. Also tested with the Franklin plug-in removed: which solved the more severe crashing but did not solve the performance issues.



Note that AutoArchive is missing entirely from the patched Outlooks MailBox Cleanup UI, it should be between those two blank lines.
















This is what that UI window should look like.

















Fix this problem by removing KB-2412171.

This patch can be removed safely. (Note:  Microsoft has removed their page for this patch - which I had linked to in the original article. This hopefully means a fixed version is coming very soon.  In the mean time, here are the steps to remove this patch from your system.)

1) Close Outlook and any related applications (such as Google Calendar Sync).
2) Open Control Panel >> Add / Remove (or Uninstall) Programs.
3) Click Show Windows Updates or View Installed Updates (depends on your Windows version.)
4) Locate the Outlook update KB-2412171 and remove/uninstall it.
5) Normally a reboot is not required, but if you are prompted to -- wait until you complete the further steps below.

Additionally, I recommend you block this update on systems that have not yet been patched, or block it after removing it so you don't get slammed again.

1) Force a check for updates.
2) Updates should display KB-2412171 as available.
3) Un-check KB-2412171, then right click (in Windows 7) and hide it.  In IE (Windows XP) Uncheck the first box next to the update, then check the box below to hide it.

That should solve the problems for now.  I recommend you check back later - when a fixed version is released I will make a point of announcing it here.

New: Microsoft has removed the KB article for this patch from their website as of sometime this afternoon December 16.  They also appear to have removed the patch from Automatic updates.  If you manually remove this patch as described above to correct problems, you should not have to "hide" the update to prevent it from reinstalling. It will simply not be on the list anymore when you refresh available updates.

14 comments:

  1. I can concur this happens to me too on W7 x64 and Outlook 2007. My Autoarchive tab is missing completely after installing KB2412171 and things do seem sluggish. Nice job MS!

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  2. I uninstalled KB-2412171 from my Win 7 64bit system. Outlook sped up, but my Auto archive feature is still missing.

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  3. Thanks a lot! This was very helpfull.

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  4. #Sam: That's unusual. Not sure I can be of much help beyond the article, my efforts to further research this were blocked when Microsoft pulled the patch from their servers. My bad for not caching the update locally.

    You can "hope" that Microsoft's re-release of this patch will fix your issue - but you might be better served by doing a repair install from your Outlook / Office 2007 DVD's. Be sure to re-apply Service Pack 2 after that . . .

    Good luck!

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  5. Hello NetDef,
    So glad I found your blog and managed to fix the problem based on your instructions.
    I had the exact problem described. Was really bewildered for a while.
    You are the savior
    Boaz, from the Holyland :)

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  6. Dear NetDef

    Many thanks for the clear and helpful instructions. Outlook is running again on my system and I have managed to archive my folders.

    CJ, from Germany

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  7. Cannot uninstall the update from Add/Remove Programs
    Error msg: "Installation source for this is not available. Verify source exists and that you can access it."
    Any workaround this uninstall block?

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  8. Thank you so much! I tried various other solutions suggested on the web but this is the one that worked (and made complete sense unlike some of the others). Full functionality has now been restored.

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  9. #Thomas: I've only seen that error for Office 2007 when someone corrupted or deleted the MSOCache folder and contents from their system.

    There used to be a tool for Office 2003 that could rebuild it, (search for "Local Installation Source Tool") but alas it's not been updated.

    AFAIK your only hope is a full repair install, perhaps even a full removal and re-install if the repair fails.

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  10. KB2412171 shows up in my updates history, but NOT on my uninstall list of updates. I cannot undo the damage, and it is driving me batty.

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  11. #LarissaH: Do you see other KB updates in Add/Remove listed that can be removed? Did you select the "View Updates" if XP, or "View Installed Updates" if Win7?

    If worst comes to worst, you may have to remove Outlook entirely and re-install.

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  12. Thanks NetDef, was a real solution to: getting back AUTOARCHIVE and speeding up Outlook.
    Thanks,
    Jorge

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  13. Thank you!!!!! I could not figure out what was wrong with my computer! Thank you for posting this!

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  14. Thanks netdef,

    Its sad that I have all the latest virus/malware/firewall protection and I have to worry about MS updates. There should be a product that warns us of bad MS updates, they would make a fortune.
    Thanks again.

    ReplyDelete

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