Windows Live Mail 2012 Suddenly Started Crashing

I have been using WLM 2012 on my Win7 desktop PC for years. It literally worked fine until this afternoon.

I powered up the PC this morning about 7am as I normally do. WLM started normally. I opened and read several new emails. Deleted some. All was normal.

Around 9:30am I closed all applications, logged off Win7 and put the PC in sleep mode. I was leaving the house for an appointment. I came back between Noon & 1pm and woke up the PC. I started WLM and went to the calendar to enter a new appointment. As I was doing that, it crashed. I let it close and restart. Ever since, it crashes during startup. The main window opens, I see it go through checking each email account for new messages and when it gets to updating calendar, it crashes.

I tried powering down & restarting the PC. Same problem. I ran the Windows Live Essential repair function from Control Panel which ran to normal completion. Rebooted the PC but it still had the same problem.

I do NOT have the infamous KB 3093594 patch installed.

Here is the entry from the Event Viewer. Any ideas? I'm in real trouble not being able to read any emails before crashing.

Log Name: Application
Source: Application Error
Date: 04/14/2016 1:25:00 PM
Event ID: 1000
Task Category: (100)
Level: Error
Keywords: Classic
User: N/A
Computer: lenovoM83
Description:
Faulting application name: wlmail.exe, version: 16.4.3564.1216, time stamp: 0x5671e281
Faulting module name: wcsync.dll, version: 16.4.3564.1216, time stamp: 0x5671e2db
Exception code: 0xc0000005
Fault offset: 0x00045ee1
Faulting process id: 0x%9
Faulting application start time: 0x%10
Faulting application path: %11
Faulting module path: %12
Report Id: %13
Event Xml:
<Event xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/win/2004/08/events/event">
<System>
<Provider Name="Application Error" />
<EventID Qualifiers="0">1000</EventID>
<Level>2</Level>
<Task>100</Task>
<Keywords>0x80000000000000</Keywords>
<TimeCreated SystemTime="2016-04-14T17:25:00.000000000Z" />
<EventRecordID>63333</EventRecordID>
<Channel>Application</Channel>
<Computer>lenovoM83</Computer>
<Security />
</System>
<EventData>
<Data>wlmail.exe</Data>
<Data>16.4.3564.1216</Data>
<Data>5671e281</Data>
<Data>wcsync.dll</Data>
<Data>16.4.3564.1216</Data>
<Data>5671e2db</Data>
<Data>c0000005</Data>
<Data>00045ee1</Data>
</EventData>
</Event>

OK, this is weird. I followed these steps from another forum:

If you can't get that far because the program crashes, you'll have to prevent the crash:

1. Disconnect from the Internet before trying to launch Windows Live Mail
2. When the program opens, press Ctrl-Shift-O for Options. On the Connection tab, click Stop signing in and dismiss the warning. Close the options dialogue.
3. Click Send/Receive.

WLM started and did not crash. I watched it check each email account for new messages. Of course it did not try to update the calendar because I was logged off. Being off line, this left me with no contacts and an empty calendar.

For chuckles, I then logged back into my WLM outlook.com account. It updated the calendar without crashing and all my contacts were back.

I closed WLM, waited a minute and then started WLM. It started normally, including updating the calendar without crashing.

The only problem I've seen so far is that now the safe senders list has been cleared. Not a major issue because I can rebuild it manually.

This has left me scratching my head.

I look to be back in business. I had a recent disk image so I was able to mount the Registry hive and export the Blocked & Safe Senders lists. After a little find/replace to edit the 2 .reg files, I successfully imported both of them.

I then started WLM (no crash) normally and checked the Options for the Blocked & Safe Senders lists. Both were properly restored.

So all I really did to fix my original WLM crashing problem was sign out of Windows Live Services (Microsoft Cloud) restart WLM and sign back in.

Go figure.