Powerpoint not working after latest updates (patch tuesday)

[livekyle]

Hey,

I want to direct your attention to the problem described here: http://forums.windowscentral.com/microsoft-office/340171-office-2013-powerpoint-not-working.html

Any other Surface users having this problem?

Thanks!

 

[Matt Dwyer21]

Yeah what the hell is going on. I need my powerpoint.:angry:

 

[NavyTango]

Same here... had to switch over to Google slides

 

[BGrewer]

I have the same problem too, i'm getting in touch with Microsoft tomorrow

 

[John Steffes]

http://forums.windowscentral.com/mi...-2013-powerpoint-not-working.html#post2982683
KB2920732, This update is currently unavailable. It is being revised to address an issue that is under investigation. The update will be restored when the issue is resolved.

They know they broke PowerPoint (hope they know they broke it on all Office RT systems), however, why do they not allow uninstall of Office RT patches?

Guess that proves they do not test their patches...

 

[BGrewer]

Well, I've just spoke to Microsoft and they know about the problem, so we'll probably get an update in the next couple of days to fix powerpoint

 

[livekyle]

So, just like other users in the other thread I also did a system refresh and now it's working again.

This was the very first time I did a refresh so I thought I'd write down my experiences...
For folks who don't need powerpoint in the next few days I suggest to simply wait because the whole refresh thing is quite tedious IMHO. Firstly it installs dozens of app updates and then there are the system updates of course. After looking for updates for literally half an hour it came up with almost 2GB worth of updates (yes, I made sure the malignant PP update was not among them haha). It's installing at the moment...
Also, thanks to the "backup function" mostly all settings and such are safed but there are still some little things I needed to adjust again. So to sum it up: refreshing could be less time consuming if you ask me but if you do need PP soon (just like me) it's worth it I guess.

 

[Rebecca Graudons]

I've been having the same problem across four surfaces (my company used them for marketing) and I'm thinking it's going to be to time consuming to restore all of them and then wait for updates. Anyone have an idea of the timeline we're looking at for the next update to come out and fix the issue? We were hoping to ship out our media tomorrow, but powerpoint needs to work first.

 

[LJuliet7]

I contacted Microsoft last night. IT immediately suggested wiping my entire computer clean. I was uncomfortable with this as I am a graduate student and I have a LOT of files on my computer (some of which were not backed up on a Cloud device). After an hour or so I lost contact with him (error on his end or mine, I cannot say) and I thought it was a sign to wait it out. Sadly refreshing will not work for me and although I installed an update about half an hour ago, I am still receiving the same error. I cannot say how long it will take for them to fix this, but I have a PP project due in a week so hopefully it is corrected soon. Updates will be appreciated if anyone receives news.

 

[John Steffes]

OK, Microsoft...

So I recommend you wait for them to fix what they broke...

But did a search for PPINTL.DLL.* found older versions in the C:\Windows\Installer\$PatchCache$\Managed...

Now I found two versions: 15.0.4569 and 15.0.4505.

They have a name like PPINTL.DLL.1033, renamed the existing file under C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office15\1033 from PPINTL.DLL to PPINTL.DLL.NEW. Copied the latest version (in my case 15.0.4569) from the installer cache..

PowerPoint starts and works...

FYI When Microsoft does fix this, I would rename the file copied, and rename the old one back before applying Microsoft's Fix

 

[BGrewer]

Microsoft said a fix will be out in the next couple of days...

 

[livekyle]

So, just like other users in the other thread I also did a system refresh and now it's working again.

This was the very first time I did a refresh so I thought I'd write down my experiences...
For folks who don't need powerpoint in the next few days I suggest to simply wait because the whole refresh thing is quite tedious IMHO. Firstly it installs dozens of app updates and then there are the system updates of course. After looking for updates for literally half an hour it came up with almost 2GB worth of updates (yes, I made sure the malignant PP update was not among them haha). It's installing at the moment...
Also, thanks to the "backup function" mostly all settings and such are safed but there are still some little things I needed to adjust again. So to sum it up: refreshing could be less time consuming if you ask me but if you do need PP soon (just like me) it's worth it I guess.

Just a little update on this...

It took the damn thing till NOW to install all updates (yep about 8-9 hours from starting the refresh process until I was back to where I was before). It installed a big load of updates and restarted and then there were new updates etc. Four rounds in total! And to make things even worse the last round of updates resulted in about 15 important (!) updates that failed to install and there is no option to try again...who knows if the system will try again at some point...

Oh and all these updates chewed up 9 GB of space which is ridiculous!!! I thought a refresh might at least leave me with more free space but I guess MS doesn't even grant us that. My Surface has been chewing up space ever since I got it even though I'm not the kind of user who loads all kinds of apps and such. The space just goes to waste without installing anything or putting media on the device...it's just ridiculous! Again, I thought the refresh might wipe the damn thing and then it only installs the FRESHEST updates but it installed updates from early 2014 and so on. What is MS thinking?? Old update should be cleared once they are owerwritten with newer patches...

Sorry about the rant. Especially the part with the chewed up space was a little off-topic I guess but I'm really frustrated with this device right nowrly:

 

[Pleaselisten]

This is absolutely incredible!! How can Microsoft treat customers like this??? Why is there no announcement about this on MS websites??? How can they update their own software and then it doesn't work on their own hardware??? What planet are they from??? If I treated customers like this I'd be out of business immediately! Why is there no apology??? Who is meant to in charge of this and what are they doing??? U-N-B-E-L-I-E-V-A-B-L-E!!!!

 

[LJuliet7]

Sorry about the rant. Especially the part with the chewed up space was a little off-topic I guess but I'm really frustrated with this device right now

You're right about the Surface chewing up space, and it's not exactly off-topic! When I first tried to refresh, the reason it wouldn't work was because it said I didn't have enough room. I then proceeded to clean out my computer (mostly Word documents for grad school) and still there wasn't enough space for the refresh. I can't explain what is taking up all my memory. I also do not keep lots of apps. The few that I had I got rid of to make space. Still no go! Sadly I'm also becoming increasingly frustrated with this device. My RT has a lot of quirks like the screen freaking out for no reason when no one is touching it, my current internet windows suddenly closing when I'm in the middle of a project, the power button not wanting to turn on, and now PP not working...My Apple-user boyfriend frequently reminds me that this is what I get for rushing out to buy a "prototype." *Big Sigh*

 

[livekyle]

You're right about the Surface chewing up space, and it's not exactly off-topic! When I first tried to refresh, the reason it wouldn't work was because it said I didn't have enough room. I then proceeded to clean out my computer (mostly Word documents for grad school) and still there wasn't enough space for the refresh. I can't explain what is taking up all my memory. I also do not keep lots of apps. The few that I had I got rid of to make space. Still no go! Sadly I'm also becoming increasingly frustrated with this device. My RT has a lot of quirks like the screen freaking out for no reason when no one is touching it, my current internet windows suddenly closing when I'm in the middle of a project, the power button not wanting to turn on, and now PP not working...My Apple-user boyfriend frequently reminds me that this is what I get for rushing out to buy a "prototype." *Big Sigh*

Yea, same here. The "light" refresh where it says it keeps your files wouldn't work for me. It said it needed 460 MB additional space to be freed. I was at about 7 GB of free space at that point with not many (large) apps installed at all. I figured what the hell and went for the full restore...

FYI: like I said earlier, after the refresh and after all updates had been installed I was immediately down to about 9,5 GB which is ridiculous. BUT I then did a disc cleanup which lead to 12 GB of free space and about 24 hours later the OS had freed 2 additional GBs by itself so now I am at 14 GB of free space...that's not so bad after all. Still the problem remains and every "patch" (or should I say "break stuff") tuesday chews up 0.5-1 GB of space...

 

[Alan Dorfmeyer]

Thanks for the fix. It worked fine, and I'm back using PowerPoint on my Surface 2.

 

[neel narasimhan]

I exactly have same problem after latest updation

 

[livekyle]

The update is available now!
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2956149?wa=wsignin1.0

I can't test if it really fixes the problem though because as I wrote earlier I did a system reset to fix PP...

 

[Indistinguishable]

The update is available now!
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2956149?wa=wsignin1.0

I can't test if it really fixes the problem though because as I wrote earlier I did a system reset to fix PP...

 

[Rick Gould]

I had the exact same problem which I discovered whilst on a train journey. I was two hours away from having to deliver a presentation, so I wanted to refresh what I was going to say. Thanks to John, I was able to get PowerPoint working on my Surface RT.

So thanks again, but no thanks to Microsoft who clearly need to address some major holes in their QA/QC procedures. It seems blindingly obvious that Microsoft's software engineers could not have thoroughly tested the patch.