Chrome, Word & PowerPoint crash after Mac OS X 10.8.5 Update

If Google Chrome, Microsoft Office 2011 applications like Word, Excel, Powerpoint & Outlook or other third party apps start crashing or hanging immediately at launch after upgrading your Mac to the new version of Mountain Lion, Mac OS X 10.8.5, there is a quick fix that can avoid troubleshooting.

There appears to be an issue with the App Store update from 10.8.4 to 10.8.5 typically called a delta update. Downloading and running Apple’s 10.8.5 Combo Updater which restarts your Mac and puts it right back to 10.8.5 makes the issue vanish.

Combo updates are Apple’s version of their latest patches and also include all previous updates for that operating system. Delta updates only include the patches since the last update version.