Work computer just got two years of Win7 updates, now Outlook 2010 won't connect

Question

My work computer was getting slow, I was having trouble opening some Microsoft Office files because I didn't have the latest updates.  Updates weren't working on my computer at all since I first got the machine two years ago when I started at this company. 
I found online there was WindowsUpdate AU registry key that needed to be deleted in order to receive updates.  I did this and got all the updates.  But then afterward my Outlook would not download my work email, and my Office Communicator would not
connect either.  It would prompt me for my password, but would tell me I had the incorrect password (even though I did not).  Office/OC also did not work on my mobile device.  So I restored back to before the updates and now it works fine. However
Win Update still wants to install all of these problematic Office updates since Microsoft does list them as "Important."  My network admin has put a restriction on my machine that disallows me to change when and how Windows updates, so they
will be installed automatically when I shut the computer down (I think so anyway).
I would like to know how to either 1. keep these particular Office updates from installing (I see that I can deselect them in Windows Update, but that's only temporary I'm sure), or better yet, 2. figure out how the heck to get Outlook/Office Communicator
to work with the updates.  I have notified my IT department, but I will be honest, they are very slow at responses and historically haven't been a whole lot of help, so I wanted to start here. Thanks for any help.

Answer 1

Hi,
My opinion is you should go ahead to check for updates and install any required ones. It’s always a good idea to keep current with updates.
As per the description, it looks like some settings or files got corrupted during the updating. But this should not affect the account itself, which means the use of Office on your mobile device should not be affected. Are you able to use
Office on your mobile device again after the restoration?
What is the type of account configured in Outlook? Did you see any send/receive errors in Outlook?
I'd first suggest your try few general troubleshooting steps:
If you are using Exchange account, try to rebuild OST files.
This will effectively forcing Outlook to re-sync all contents from server to a new OST file. (You can find the location of your .ost file in
File> Account Settings>Account Settings>Data Files)
Repair your Office installation from the Control Panel and see if it helps.
Regards,
Ethan Hua
TechNet Community Support
It's recommended to download and install
Configuration Analyzer Tool (OffCAT), which is developed by Microsoft Support teams. Once the tool is installed, you can run it at any time to scan for hundreds of known issues in Office
programs.