Windows 8 froze after installing Microsoft Office

[dguyomar]

I purchased a new Sony Vaio laptop on Saturday and installed Microsoft Office for the trial time, shortly after the cursor become unresponsive and would not open any programs. I did a fresh install but the same thing happened when I activated MS Office.

I thought it might be the hardware and got a new laptop as the vendor was happy to swap it. However on activating the pre installed MS Office the same issue occured.

Is Windows 8 incompatible with MS Office or is it just the Sony Vaio model?

I bought the SONY VAIO E Series SVE1712Q1EW.CEK 17.3"

[Inti27]

Sony have advised resetting the laptop (takes about 4 hours) which clears the disk back to its state when purchased.

When you reboot laptop (post reset), turn all Microsoft Windows & MS products updates off. Also turn VAIO updates off until otherwise instructed by Sony. My VAIO was set to auto download & update when initially supplied, so the problem is inevitably inflicyed on you once the VAIO has wifi access, unless you take action to disable updates, as above.

Sony will advise when their fix is ready, and update process to apply fix. Hopefully soon

The "freeze after installing Office" is more than likely a red herring. It is the MS updates downloaded & applied  to particular VAIO models wot is likely to have done it!

Do not know which VAIO models, configs etc are affected. In the absence of any info, would speculate its confined to the latest preloaded Windows 8 VAIOs.

I will post if I hear anything. Any info you have on this, please advise.

gerryduggan

Message was edited by: gerryduggan

[Inti27]

Pls see below for Sony Support memo sent out today:

As per our conversation, kindly be advised with the following information and steps:

McAfee has released a fix for the issue. Use the following steps to apply the fix to your computer:

1. Ensure your PC is connected to the Internet.
2. Restart your PC.
3. Log in to Windows.

Your PC will be silently updated with the latest fix.
If your PC is still frozen after restarting:

1. Ensure your PC is connected to the Internet.
2. Restart your PC.
3. Wait 15 minutes, and then log in to Windows.

If your PC experiences the problem again:

1. Start Task Manager and click the Details tab.
2. Select OCPHelper.exe and end the process.
3. Ensure your PC is connected to the Internet and wait 24 hours. During this time, your PC will be updated with the latest fix.
4. Log in to Windows.

Best Regards

SONY SUPPORT TEAM

SUPPORT: http://www.sony.co.uk/support/en

Personally I have deinstalled both supplied McAfee products using Control Panel, rebooted & installed AVG Antivirus Free 2013 http://free.avg.com/gb-en/homepage.

AVG is not as fully featured as the McAfee product, and may, therefore, not be suitable for what you require. Best then to follow Sony Support advice above.

Hopefully this is the end of this particular saga.

Thanks to Blencogo & also Mohammed T in the Sony Support Team for getting to the bottom of this issue.

Good luck!