KB3114717 Causes High CPU and Breaks Office 2013 Applications

Here’s one to hold off on installing this month: KB3114717

Shortly after this month’s patches started rolling out from Microsoft, I started receiving reports of Office apps seizing-up, particularly Microsoft Word. After a couple more days, and more reports, I think it’s safe to say that you should hold-off on installing KB3114717 until Microsoft issues a fix.

KB3114717 is an update for Office 2013 that is intended to fix some open bugs, but also add “telemetry” to help root out problems when the system is low on memory. Unfortunately, the result is a CPU that tops out at 100% and keeps Word documents from opening.

The issue exhibits itself primarily for Microsoft Word 2013, but has also been experienced with Excel and Outlook – all 2013 products (not 2016 editions).

Microsoft its aware of the problem and is actively working on a fix. For now, its recommended to not install this update and if you have already you should uninstall it and wait for a reissued patch. Fortunately, this is not a security patch, but an optional update designed as a product bug fix, so delaying its installation won't do any harm or leave the system unprotected.

UPDATE: Microsoft has now pulled this update.

Other than this issue, there’s very little additional murmuring about patching bugs this month.