Office apps crash on Windows 11 24H2 PCs with CrowdStrike antivirus

Another week, another issue with Windows 11 24H2 cropping up. It’s been over a month since the major Windows 11 update began rolling out to users and we’ve seen network connectivity issues, blue screen crashes, and rescue patches that fail to install. It’s gotten to the point where Microsoft has had to block the update for affected devices.

Related: Must-know details about Windows 11 24H2

But even as Microsoft works on fixing the numerous issues already in play, more problems are surfacing — like a recent issue involving Microsoft Office apps crashing when a particular antivirus software is installed on your system, according to this support page.

The annoying error affects Office applications such as Word or Excel, which crash and become completely unusable after updating to Windows 11 24H2. And this apparently only happens on systems that are running antivirus software by CrowdStrike. (Yes, the very same CrowdStrike that caused the global IT meltdown back in July.)

That would be CrowdStrike’s Falcon sensor antivirus software, which has several advanced cybersecurity mechanisms that can cause problems on Windows 11 24H2 if the “Enhanced Exploitation Visibility Prevention Policy” setting is enabled in the host’s Prevention Policy.

It isn’t yet known whether other antivirus software is affected. So far, though, it appears to be isolated to devices that have updated to Windows 11 24H2 and are protected by CrowdStrike’s solution.

Microsoft has added affected devices to its list of devices that are blocked from receiving the Windows 11 24H2 update, and the company has announced that it’s working with CrowdStrike to fix the error. In the meantime, CrowdStrike has temporarily disabled the Enhanced Exploitation Visibility Prevention Policy setting for affected users, which has mitigated the issue until a proper fix is released.

This isn’t the first time Microsoft has had to work with other companies to address issues in the big 2024 update to its operating system. Just weeks ago, they worked with SSD manufacturers to address an issue causing hardware crashes on affected devices.

This issue only affects organizations and managed IT environments. But if your personal Windows PC is affected by other Windows 11 24H2 problems, you might consider reverting to a previous version.