Microsoft is investigating an issue causing the Windows taskbar and Start Menu to become unresponsive and triggering Outlook and Teams login problems.
Windows Start Menu when clicking, not being able to launch modern apps, and that the Windows Search feature is broken.
Others have also reported encountering issues while trying to log into Azure Active Directory (Azure AD) to activate Office 365 apps.
Similar issues have happened in the past, too, with Microsoft MVP Rudy Ooms linking them in June 2022 with the ClickShare app (a tool that helps share a Windows device’s screen wirelessly) corrupting User Shell Folders registry permissions.
However, Microsoft sent a statement two months later acknowledging that its own software was breaking permissions for the affected apps and causing unresponsiveness and connection issues.
“While this initially appeared to be an issue with the 3rd party app, it now appears to be Microsoft code (profapi.dll) which breaks the permissions thinking they need to be recovered,” Redmonds told Ooms.
“This may occur when an x32 third-party process (like ClickShare) uses Office APIs on a machine where Office is deployed using Office ClickToRun, because of a bug in AppvIsvSubsystem32.dll registry hooks.
“In this case, profapi.dll will start recovering the ACLs, but after a second failure, it won’t write the All Application Packages ACLs, causing issues (crashes & registration failures) with packaged apps.”
There has been a Script “Script to fix corrupt registry permission” written to possibly fix this issue “Band-aide Fix” however Microsoft is still investigating the issue and has yet to comment on the issue.
Source: BleepingComputers