Information About the Microsoft KB5006670 Update and Phish Alert Button Errors

A recent update from Microsoft has caused certain organizations and individuals to receive “Add-in could not be started” error messages in their admin consoles. See the sections below for more information to help resolve this error.

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Impacted Environments
Symptoms
Microsoft’s Proposed Workaround and Resolution

Impacted Environments

Below is a list of different environments that may experience the error mentioned above. If your organization uses one of the environments listed below, make sure to check if your Phish Alert Button (PAB) is functioning.

• Windows 10 installations with updates that are managed by custom installation media or ISO images.
• The use of custom offline media or ISO images created by slipstreaming this update into the image without having first installed the standalone servicing stack update (SSU) released March 29, 2021 or later.
  • Devices that connect directly to Windows Update to receive updates are not affected. This includes devices that use Windows Update for Business.
• The Microsoft Outlook desktop client application.
• Any server-based PAB versions, specifically PAB V2 and Hybrid PAB.

If you're experiencing any errors with your Phish Alert Button, see the Symptoms and Microsoft's Proposed Workaround and Resolution sections below.

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Symptoms

Environments that are managing updates of Windows OS that are not coming directly from the Windows Update service may see their PAB is impacted by an error message. This error message reads: “Add-In Error. The Add-in could not be started. Close the dialog to ignore the problem or click ‘Restart’ to try again.”

The behavior appears to be related to a known Microsoft issue with the update. For more information, see Microsoft’s article about the update.

The PAB and Microsoft Outlook add-ins make use of the browser that is installed on the desktop or mobile client. The update has an impact on the Microsoft Legacy Edge installation on a machine, which removes the Microsoft Legacy Edge browser from the device but does not properly replace the browser with a new version of Microsoft Edge. The issue is only encountered when custom offline media or ISO images are created by slipstreaming this update into the image without having first installed the standalone servicing stack update (SSU) released March 29, 2021 or later.

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Microsoft’s Proposed Workaround and Resolution

Microsoft has proposed the following workarounds to resolve this issue on impacted systems and environments. All of this information is obtained directly from Microsoft’s documentation on the update. For more information about this issue, we recommend that you reach out to Microsoft.

• To avoid this issue, be sure to first slipstream the SSU released March 29, 2021 or later into the custom offline media or ISO image before slipstreaming the LCU. To do this with the combined SSU and LCU packages now used for Windows 10, version 20H2 and Windows 10, version 2004, you will need to extract the SSU from the combined package. Use the following steps to extract the using SSU:
  1. Extract the cab from the msu via this command line (using the package for KB5000842 as an example): expand Windows10.0-KB5000842-x64.msu /f:Windows10.0-KB5000842-x64.cab <destination path>
  2. Extract the SSU from the previously extracted cab via this command line: expand Windows10.0-KB5000842-x64.cab /f:* <destination path>
  3. You will then have the SSU cab, in this example named SSU-19041.903-x64.cab. Slipstream this file into your offline image first, then the LCU.
• If you have already encountered this issue by installing the OS using affected custom media, you can mitigate it by directly installing the new Microsoft Edge (https://www.microsoft.com/edge). If you need to broadly deploy the new Microsoft Edge for business, see Download and deploy Microsoft Edge for business (https://www.microsoft.com/edge/business/download).

For further assistance with this feature, please contact our support team and they would be happy to help.

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