On a machine running Windows 7 Professional SP1 (fully updated), all Office 2013 Professional applications fail to launch.
Last Thursday night (8/14/2014), the machine rebooted after automatically installing updates. On Friday, the problem occurred. A search for a solution turned up a post on Microsoft Answers in which Nirmal S, a Microsoft Forum Moderator, attributes the problem to an update called "July Public Update". There is no such update listed in the Windows Update History or in Programs and Features on this machine.
This is what I've done:
- Rebooted the machine and tried to start Microsoft Word. That didn't work.
- Used the fix it to uninstall Office. (I should note that no other versions of Office have ever been installed on this machine.)
- Logged in to our Microsoft account and downloaded a fresh installer.
- While running the installer, it reaches 51% and then fails with Error Code 30175-4.
- I disabled Microsoft Security Essentials and Windows Firewall, and performed a clean boot as per KB929135 and tried to install again. That also failed at 51% with Error Code 30175-4.
The solution to 30175-4 is to use the fix it to uninstall Office and then reinstall it, but the fix it, after already having done its job, can't find anything to uninstall.
One other disappointing thing: There are no messages in the system or applicaton event logs.
That post on Microsoft Answers has more than 380 replies and almost 90,000 views. This installation issue is related to the problem encountered trying to execute Office applications.