Office Word 2019 fails to launch when FSlogix rules are applied

[Philip_McLoughlin]

Hey Folks....

Phil here... just thought I would share the following with you.

Scenario

Office 2019 is installed

FSlogix rules are applied to prevent  Office being accessed by unauthorised users

When the rules are applied , Word fails to launch. We see the splash screen and then it times out.

Excel /Outlook/ PowerPoint, Access and other Office apps all launch providing the user has entitlement

Cause:

Word needs the SYSTEM account so this needs to be added.

However, when testing , Word still failed to launch. We still see the splash screen and then we exit. 

What could be wrong?

Cause :

After investigation, we saw that Adding the system account , Word would still fail. This is because The rule assignment for the SYSTEM account via the object picker is written for a Group and not User.

You can validate this by looking at the ".fxa" file that the rule editor writes out.

0x00000012     S-1-5-18                       NT AUTHORITY\SYSTEM          0          0

The 0x00000012 indicates 

• Its a Group
• The Rule is not assigned

You may also have 0x00000011

• Its a Group
• The Rule is assigned

It should be 0x00000006 unassigned rule (you may also choose to have 0x00000005 assigned rule) both indicate it is a User assignment.

Workaround

To resolve this , edit the assignment file (.fxa) in Notepad and change the setting :

To the following 

Word should now launch as expected.

This is a known issue and is scheduled to be fixed in the next release cycle of FSLogix 

Until Next Time.....