Microsoft word won't open - registry error from upgrade to 8.1?

Howdy,

When trying to open Microsoft word (or any other office application - I have office '13), I get the following message:

Winword.exe - Entry Point Not Found
"The procedure entry point _vsnprin4 could not be located in the dynamic link library C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\d2d1.dll."

I read a suggestion to use Event View to see the error details and this is what it reported (please note is error generated below pertains to excel):

Faulting application name: EXCEL.EXE, version: 15.0.4667.1000, time stamp: 0x543d3243
Faulting module name: C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\d2d1.dll!_vsnprin4, version: 6.3.9600.17278, time stamp: 0x53eeb4a3
Exception code: 0xc0000139
Fault offset: 0x00098f05
Faulting process id: 0x210
Faulting application start time: 0x01d018e83f5689e6
Faulting application path: C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Office\Office15\EXCEL.EXE
Faulting module path: C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\d2d1.dll
Report Id: 82ef0769-84db-11e4-beb0-006b9e021b75
Faulting package full name:
Faulting package-relative application ID:

Any ideas where to go from here? Is this a result to my upgrade to 8.1 from windows 8?

Thanks!