Yesterday, we reported that the April 2025 cumulative security update KB5002700 for Microsoft Office 2016 has triggered widespread application crashes. These issues affect Word, Excel, and Outlook, occurring both at launch and during active use, and are present on both Windows 10 and Windows 11 platforms.
Initially, it was assumed that Microsoft would resolve the issue through Known Issue Rollback (KIR) technology via the cloud. However, it now appears that KIR is not applicable in this case. Instead, Microsoft has issued an emergency out-of-band update, KB5002623, specifically to address this problem—eliminating the need for users to manually edit the registry or uninstall the original KB5002700 patch.
Out-of-band updates are releases issued outside Microsoft’s regular update schedule. Normally, Microsoft adheres to a structured update cadence involving B, C, and D releases—corresponding to official and preview builds. For Office, updates typically follow the formal release schedule, but out-of-band updates are deployed to remedy critical issues that cannot wait for the next scheduled release.
According to Microsoft’s release notes: “This update fixes the known issue in KB 5002700 that causes Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, and Microsoft Outlook to stop responding. To restore the full Office 2016 suite to a working state, you must have both updates KB 5002700 and KB 5002623 installed.”
From this explanation, if users had previously uninstalled KB5002700, it must now be reinstalled. This is straightforward—simply return to Windows Update and check for updates to redownload it. Once installed, KB5002623 can then be applied manually.
Below are the offline installers for these updates:
Note: These updates are available in both 32-bit and 64-bit versions. Please verify your system architecture and download the appropriate version to ensure proper installation. Microsoft also reminds users that KB5002623 applies only to installations of Office 2016 performed using the Microsoft Installer (MSI). Other installation methods may not be supported.
