Started getting errors when previewing Office documents in Explorer preview pane. When selecting a Word document and waiting for the preview to appear, we’d get this:<\/p>\n
\nSorry<\/span><\/strong>, something went wrong and Word was unable to start<\/span><\/strong><\/em>. (24<\/span><\/strong><\/em>)<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
Excel docs also had an error but it consisted of a dialog with a red exclamation point.<\/p>\n
All of the machines this happened on all originally had 64-bit Office 2013 before it was uninstalled and replaced with 32-bit Office 2013 because of compatibility issues with a required plug-in.<\/p>\n
In trying to figure this out, various uninstall\/reinstall methods were used but nothing made a difference until I fired up procmon and used it to make comparisons with a working machine.<\/p>\n
On a system that only ever had 32-bit Office 2013, the following key existed:<\/p>\n
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\\Wow6432Node\\CLSID\\{84F66100-FF7C-4fb4-B0C0-02CD7FB668FE}<\/p>\n
On a system with 64-bit Office this key also existed<\/p>\n
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\\SOFTWARE\\Classes\\CLSID\\{84F66100-FF7C-4fb4-B0C0-02CD7FB668FE}<\/p>\n
The 32-bit key contained information while the 64-bit key was empty.<\/p>\n
As soon as that HKLM key was renamed(eventually deleted), everything worked again – didn’t even need to restart or log out.<\/p>\n
It seems like the Office uninstaller might be forgetting this key when it does its thing.<\/p>\n
Hope this helps some people<\/p>\n
More:<\/p>\n