Office 2016 VL 15.21.1 breaks Check for Updates in help menu

[tcandela]

via casper policy I install Office 2016 VL 15.17 and use a choices.plist file to not install Outlook and AutoUpdates. It all works fine, check for updates is not in the Help menu. I handle the updates through casper policies.

update 15.20 was applied and all stayed the same, until 15.21.1 updates were applied

now in the Help menu 'Check for Updates' appears, and if you click it, it says

'MICROSOFT AUTOUPDATE CANNOT BE OPENED. Microsoft autoupdate might be properly installed on the computer. To restore it, reinstall your Microsoft application.'

is anyone else seeing this also happen to them ?

I created a new .pkg with the 15.21.1 VL installer and get the same result, check for updates is visible in the HELP menu and if a user clicks it the would get the same message above.

there is no differences in the ShowChoicesXML from the 15.17 to the 15.21.1 installer.

[tcandela · Accepted solution]

looks like no one has a explanation for this, or fix

[ktappe]

It is possible for MAU to become corrupt. Look in /Library/Application Support/Microsoft/MAU2.0 and see if the .app there can be opened. Throw it away manually if it cannot. The MAU installer from Microsoft will not replace a bad MAU for some reason. Only a manual dump of the bad one, followed by a reinstall can fix the error.