I have discovered a very unusual conflict between three different programs:
OneNote 2013 Preview, Trillian 5.3 build 11 Beta, and Avast! Free Antivirus 7.0.1474
Since this issue is so bizarre, I am posting this information on support forums for all three applications. The Trillian post is at: http://help.trillian.im/discussions/windows/8299-the-most-improbable-of-application-conflicts and the Office post is at http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/office/forum/office_home-onenote/the-most-improbable-of-application-conflicts/ef4c938a-dbff-4753-aff3-d0de52a17252
The issue and its apparent behavior are as follows:
The system on which this occurs is a “fresh” installation of Windows 8 Pro (upgraded from the Release Preview).
OneNote (meaning the desktop version; the “UI-Formerly-Known-As-Metro” app works fine) seems to launch properly and even seems functional. The problem arises when the program either loses and gains focus twice quickly, or is left unfocused for any length of time and then re-selected. Resizing the window and clicking on a search result seem to trigger it as well, so it might just be any real amount of input. At this point, the application freezes and crashes with no error, just a “OneNote has stopped working” message from Windows.
I have found that this behavior is only observed when BOTH of the following conditions are met:
Avast!'s Behavior Shield, specifically, is enabled.
Trillian’s In-Game Chat plug-in is enabled.
If the Behavior Shield is disabled only, the behavior is no longer a crash, but a strange type of freeze. I will go into the details of it more on the Trillian forum as it obviously does not involve Avast!.
If the In-Game Chat plugin is disabled only, or if both are turned off, the problem completely resolves. Re-installing Office did not resolve the issue.
This does not appear to affect Word, PowerPoint, or Excel. Other Office applications were not tested.
This same configuration did not produce this problem before upgrading from the Release Preview, so a change made to Win8 after that point may have triggered it. Unfortunately, after upgrading and before the first time I launched OneNote, a new Trillian Beta build was released, so a change made there could have also been the trigger.
I was able to work around this by adding “onenote.exe” to the Trillian In-Game Chat blacklist, so this issue is no longer pressing; I am merely being a good user of pre-releases and reporting bugs wherever possible
Since such a complex issue with so many variables could be all-but-impossible to fully track down, my initial suggestion would be for the Trillian developers to hard code that blacklisting as a simple fix.