Just spent 2 hours of my life on trying to figure out why Excel and Word wouldn’t start up, not even in safe mode (run -> Excel /safe). All the time I got a message saying that Office didn’t shut down correctly, do you want to start it in safe mode. Then a crash followed, no startup.
But I did it, went to the registry to find out why Microsoft Office 2016 / 365 wouldn’t start even in safe mode and found out there are add-ins that prevented it from starting. In my case the add-in was Samsung Easy Document Creator that loaded with both Excel and Word.
So for Word expand this folder
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\Word\Addins\
For Excel expand
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\Excel\Addins\
Click on the icon and you will see the addins in their own folders.
If you are lucky enough that you can actually start your office in safe mode (excel /safe or word /safe) then see how to disable add-ons as described on Microsoft’s website.
Cheers for stepping by.