I have a difficult issue to sort out with the free version of OneNote Desktop – Microsoft OneNote for Microsoft 365 MSO (16.0.14131.20278) 32 bit.
I hope there is a clever soul out there who can dig me out of an unpleasant hole if find myself in.
This is NOT to do with the OneNote Windows 10 app, but rather the free Office Desktop program that Microsoft are supporting until 2025, which used to be part of Office 2016.
I have installed Windows 10 on a ThinkPad w520 using my Windows 7 licence key and the Microsoft ISO from the official website.
All other programs that I use have installed correctly, including Microsoft Office 2010, but OneNote for Desktop is giving me problems.
The program installs ok, but refuses to open, and only ever gives me an error pop up which says “How do you want to start OneNote? We couldn’t start OneNote the last time we tried. What do you want us to do? We’re not sure what went wrong”.
The popup then gives 3 options:
Start Normally.
Delete the Notebook cache.
Delete Settings.
I have tried all three options, and nothing fixed the problem, and the same popup comes up each time.
In Event viewer, I get the following application error:
Faulting application name: ONENOTE.EXE, version: 16.0.14131.20278, time stamp: 0x60da2cf2
Faulting module name: mso20win32client.dll, version: 0.0.0.0, time stamp: 0x60da5388
Exception code: 0x236de5c0
Fault offset: 0x001b5b93
Faulting process ID: 0x284c
Faulting application start time: 0x01d7740454f3bf2b
Faulting application path: C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Office\root\Office16\ONENOTE.EXE
Faulting module path: C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Office16\mso20win32client.dll
Report ID: ed2bfc50-9093-4470-9ac8-fee162ff1a6b
Faulting package full name:
Faulting package-relative application ID:
I have done everything I can think of to fix this:-
– Cleared cache and settings as suggested in the jpg error warning.
– Tried to open OneNote for Desktop in Office Safe mode.
– Repaired Office (both the Quick Repair, and the online repair).
– Uninstalled, and reinstalled the program.
– Checked the Microsoft Office Click to Run Service is running (Automatic).
– I have opened as Administrator.
– Disabled all security while installing program and subsequently running it – to make sure the firewall or other setting is not blocking it.
– Windows update is fully up to date.
– HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\16.0\OneNote key > FirstBootStatus – I changed the value to 02000202 as suggested by a forum online.
None of these interventions worked, and I am at a total loss as to what to do, and wonder if there is anyone out there that could help.
I do not have any other Office 365 programs, but I have never had an issue running this free version of OneNote with Office 2010 on a Windows 8.1 PC and also a separate Windows 10 PC.
I use OneNote extensively, and my OneNote Notebooks are too large to open in the browser or the Windows 10 app.
I suspect that it is a sign-in / licencing issue.
Many thanks
