Greetings,

We have deployed this patch to a pool of some 3000 users, and are getting several dozen reports of Lync no longer starting up when launched.  We are aware Lync should turn into Skype with this update, and for the vast majority of users, this has happened without issue.  The users that ARE affected though are all (to my knowledge so far) running Office 2013/Lync 2013, while those who aren't affected are running Office 2010/Lync 2013.  But it's not universal - some Office 2013 users are working fine.

We have checked to make sure ALL prerequisite patches are installed, no luck.  Also tried reinstalling Lync on affected machines, no change.  The only thing that gets Lync up again on these systems is to remove the patch (kb3039779).

Here is an example event log error generated by Lync attempting to start on an affected machine:

Faulting application name: lync.exe, version: 15.0.4623.1000, time stamp: 0x5372814c

Faulting module name: unknown, version: 0.0.0.0, time stamp: 0x00000000

Exception code: 0xc0000005

Fault offset: 0x0d00f238

Faulting process id: 0x1138

Faulting application start time: 0x01d09e199fd5e73d

Faulting application path: C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Office\Office15\lync.exe

Faulting module path: unknown

Report Id: dfff51ea-0a0c-11e5-9a9e-083e8e9aab24

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If anyone has advice we'd greatly appreciate it.  Our helpdesk is slowly getting inundated, and we don't even have a 1-off, crude fix much less an elegant understanding yet.

Here's what I've already tried, in terms of prereq patches.  We discovered that if a user installs ALL patches from Microsoft Windows Update (not our WSUS), then the issue goes away (at least in one instance).  So it looks like a prereq patch thing.  Haven't nailed it yet though.

Original patch causing the issues:

KB3039779

Additional related installed:

Kb2817427

Kb2889853

KB2889923

KB2817626

KB3039700

Attempted to install but patches were unneeded:

KB2817678

KB2863908

KB2727096

KB2817624

Additionally we know that reinstalling/repairing Office software doesnt resolve issue, as soon as patch returns its back.