Several times I have come across a bug in different Outlook versions when the “Signatures” button doesn’t work. No matter how many times you click it, the Signatures window won’t appear.
This time the bug appeared on Windows 10 with the newly installed RTM version of Outlook 2016. After clicking the Signatures button in the File -> Options -> Mail, nothing happened and the signature didn’t appear.
I tried to repair, remove and reinstall Office, cleanup the registry – but nothing helped. How to set a user Outlook signature in this case?
In one of the previous articles we told how to setup an Outlook signature based on user information from Active Directory. There we mentioned that in Windows 10, 8.1 and 7 the files with Outlook signatures are located in the user profile folder %APPDATA%\Microsoft\Signatures (C:\Users\username\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Signatures). So if you create an HTML/RTF/TXT file with the signature text and save it in the specified directory, you can insert your signature using the corresponding button in the Outlook 2016 interface when creating a new email or replying (Outlook must be restarted).
But it is quite inconvenient since each time you have to press the ‘Signature’ button manually. You can assign this file as a default Outlook signature through the registry. To do it, remove the First-Run parameter in registry key HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Office\<Office Version>\Outlook\Setup and create 2 string (REG_SZ) values: NewSignature and ReplySignature in the reg key HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\16.0\Common\MailSettings (for Outlook 2016). Specify the full path to the signature file as the values of these parameters.
However, this fix is inconvenient and not flexible.
There is a description of a similar bug in Windows 10 on support.office.com. To solve the problem of the Signatures button that is not working, it is recommend to uninstall a modern app Microsoft Office Desktop App (Settings -> Apps -> Apps & Features).
If it hasn’t helped, I have found some opinions on technical forums that the signature issue often appears after mailbox migration to the another domain or on computers with the preinstalled Office.
In order to make the Signatures button work, try the following:
In these registry keys (for x64 and x86 Office editions respectively) change the values of the Default and LocalServer32 parameters to the full path to the outlook.exe executable file on your computer (for example, to C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Office\Office16\Outlook.exe for Outlook 2016):
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\Wow6432Node\CLSID\{0006F03A-0000-0000-C000-000000000046}\LocalServer32HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\CLSID\{0006F03A-0000-0000-C000-000000000046}\LocalServer32
If this method hasn’t helped, try to use this REG file (for Office 2016 and Office 365):
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Outlook.Application]
@="Microsoft Outlook 16.0 Object Library"
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Outlook.Application\CLSID]
@="{0006F03A-0000-0000-C000-000000000046}"
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Outlook.Application\CurVer]
@="Outlook.Application.16"
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Outlook.Application.16]
@="Microsoft Outlook 16.0 Object Library"
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Outlook.Application.16\CLSID]
@="{0006F03A-0000-0000-C000-000000000046}"
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Wow6432Node\CLSID\{0006F03A-0000-0000-C000-000000000046}]
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Wow6432Node\CLSID\{0006F03A-0000-0000-C000-000000000046}\InprocServer32]
"Assembly"="Microsoft.Office.Interop.Outlook, Version=16.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=71E9BCE111E9429C"
"Class"="Microsoft.Office.Interop.Outlook.ApplicationClass"
"RuntimeVersion"="v2.0.50727"
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Wow6432Node\CLSID\{0006F03A-0000-0000-C000-000000000046}\InprocServer32\16.0.0.0]
"Assembly"="Microsoft.Office.Interop.Outlook, Version=16.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=71E9BCE111E9429C"
"Class"="Microsoft.Office.Interop.Outlook.ApplicationClass"
"RuntimeVersion"="v2.0.50727"
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Wow6432Node\CLSID\{0006F03A-0000-0000-C000-000000000046}\LocalServer32]
@="C:\\Program Files\\Microsoft Office\\Office16\\OUTLOOK.EXE"
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Wow6432Node\CLSID\{0006F03A-0000-0000-C000-000000000046}\ProgID]
@="Outlook.Application.16"
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Wow6432Node\CLSID\{0006F03A-0000-0000-C000-000000000046}\Typelib]
@="{00062FFF-0000-0000-C000-000000000046}"
If signature problem occurs in Office 2010, replace 16 with 14; if in Outlook 2013, replace 16 with 15.
17 comments
THANK YOUUUUU 🙂
I was struggling with this for so many time, and now it’s fixed.
I had to unistall the Microsoft Office Desktop App and that was it 🙂 Done.
Thanks
remove Microsoft Office Desktop App fixed it too for me. And i was able too to send mail from excel
I didn’t have the Microsoft Office Desktop App on my computer so I had to do the registry edit method and…. it worked perfectly!
Thank you very much for posting!
THANK YOU SO MUCH
It doesn’t take me time, I uninstall the Microsoft Office Desktop App and I am working now.
none of the above works
when i try to locate the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\Wow6432Node\CLSID\{0006F03A-0000-0000-C000-000000000046}\LocalServer32
it does not show up in the available options and i cannot copy and insert the Default and LocalServer32 registry files as per requirements stated above
Have to say this is a major failure for microsoft
two weeks cannot fix this issue, its now July 2020, and they guys at Microsoft Help Desk are proving to be worthless.
Now I am going to try to uninstall office, manually delete all reminants of it on my computer, including all pst/ost files and request they provide me a different version to download then the standard one, see what happens.
Congratulations. You are the only one on the web who knows how to fix this.
Thank you! deleting microsoft office desktop apps worked for me. I am using outlook 2016 on windows 10 (x64)
Thank you! Uninstalling Microsoft Office desktop apps worked for me.
תודה רבה מכל הלב!
Brilliant solution, worked for me. Thanks very much.
Thanks, Your given solution working fine
Thank you! MODA was not present on my computer, the only thing that got it working was the reg file! Amazing!
I’ve had situation where signature button didn’t work for specific user on same pc
So i’ve done uninstall with revo and removed all registry/data connected to office
But perhaps the solution was installing the 32-bit version of office
I didn’t have the Microsoft Office Desktop App on my computer so I had to do the registry edit method and…. it worked perfectly!
Microsoft Office Desktop App approach worked perfectly for me
Thank you, I dont have the MODA but used the” There we mentioned that in Windows 10, 8.1 and 7 the files with Outlook signatures are located in the user profile folder %APPDATA%\Microsoft\Signatures (C:\Users\username\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Signatures). So if you create an HTML/RTF/TXT file with the signature text and save it in the specified directory, you can insert your signature using the corresponding button in the Outlook 2016 interface when creating a new email or replying (Outlook must be restarted).”
Worked great, I put the required signature in outlook as a normal email and saved it as an HTML document and copied it as mentioned above.
Many thanks