Malwarebytes 3.6.1 Premium blocks Word/Excel 2013

[rborland]

Yours is a much more elegant solution, thanks for pointing it out.

[exile360]

No problem.  Yeah, it's a lot safer and more stable that way too, as the method you're using may not always work (sometimes, for example following a database update, protection tends to unload/re-load automatically which may cause the Exploit Protection DLL to try to load into those MS Office applications' processes again which might cause them to stop functioning or crash).

[Alterfritz]

I did just disable just the protection for Word and Excel and left Exploit Protection running. My question is when is MB going to correct the problem? I bet there are a lot of customers out there pulling their hair out trying to figure out what is going on. I don't think that turning off the protection is a real remedy, just a band aid.

[exile360]

There are several issues with the most recent build so I'm sure that's why it's taken so long to get a fix because they probably want to fix all of them with a single patch/release.  Hopefully they'll have a new build available shortly after the holiday (I'm sure many of the Devs and other staff members are on vacation spending time with their loved ones).

[Alterfritz]

It is now February and nothing has been done about this problem. I see it has shown up under different subjects lines but still the same problem. Obviously Malewarebytes either does not know how to fix it or doesn't really care. Very disappointed.

[LiquidTension]

We are still investigating this issue.

If you have a BitDefender product installed, please try (temporarily) disabling the Advanced Threat Defense option within the program's settings and let us know if this has any impact on the issue.

Thank you for your patience.

[Alterfritz]

I disabled Advanced Threat Protection as requested and re-enabled exploit protection for Word, Excel and Presentations and they opened correctly. Re-enabling threat protection caused the programs to not load again. Will Malewarebytes notify it's customer base when they get this conflict fixed? I won't give up Bitdefender over Malewarebytes.

[Alterfritz]

I added the Malewarebytes files to the Bitdefenders exceptions list in Threat Protection and the Office programs load fine. Hopefully, this doesn't cause problems elsewhere.

[Firefox]

Might be a good idea to take the new version for a test drive...

 

[rborland]

12 hours ago, Alterfritz said:

I disabled Advanced Threat Protection as requested and re-enabled exploit protection for Word, Excel and Presentations and they opened correctly. Re-enabling threat protection caused the programs to not load again. Will Malewarebytes notify it's customer base when they get this conflict fixed? I won't give up Bitdefender over Malewarebytes.

I also use Bitdefender but I gave up the paid version (due to their crazy pricing strategy) and now use the free version. This works very well for me but it doesn't include the exclusions configuration functionality.

[Alterfritz]

If you purchase Bitdefender on sale you only pay about $30-40 for five devices a year.

[Alterfritz]

Installed version 3.7.1, sadly the problem has returned. Malewarebytes blocks Excel, Publisher and Word in Office 2013. Adding the Malewarebytes files to Bitdefenders exceptions list in Threat Protection does not even help resolve the problem now, it did before. So, back to square one.

[LiquidTension]

Thank you for sharing your findings.

An update to this forum topic will be made when we have further information on the issue.

[tzeyen]

I had this problem with Microsoft Excel, every time I tried to open an Excel file or launch the Excel application I got the error "operating system is not configured to run this application".  I finally managed to figure out that it was my antivirus, Bitdefender.  Bitdefender's "Advanced Threat Defense" that was causing the problem. I SOLVED the problem by adding the Excel executable file (i.e., EXCEL.EXE) to the Bitdefender's "Protection<Advanced Threat Defense<Settings" as an "Excepted Application".  Now Excel launches with no problems.  Hope this helps!

[LiquidTension]

Thank you for the information! Disabling Advanced Threat Defense within BitDefender was the current workaround. It's useful to know that adding an exclusion is also a viable option.

[Alterfritz]

So, it appears the only fix is disabling protection which seems counter productive. Obviously, Malewarebytes and Bitdefender are no longer compatible with one another. I finally just uninstalled Malewarebytes until they decide to actually fix their problems. I was noticing some slow down issues also. It seems like Malewarebytes goes through these stages every so often where their software causes issues hopefully, they will get around to fixing their problems. It's been over 3 months now.