Looking into Event Viewer ‘Microsoft Office Alerts’ the following event was being generated every time problem was reproduced:
Microsoft Lync
CLSID: {00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000} CATID: {9B179D6E-9BDB-454b-BE3D-89F9A792BD39} The ActiveX Compatibility setting disabled loading this object to help protect your security.
1073695582
15.0.4433.1506
0x80004005
Take note of CLSID identifier above and open registry editor:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\ActiveX Compatibility\{00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000} (if using LYNC 2013 32 bits on Windows 8 64 bits)
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\ActiveX Compatibility\{00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000} (if running LYNC 2013 64 bits or running LYNC 2013 32 bits on Windows 8 32 bits)
You can remove this entry or change Compatibility Flags as described on the following KB articles:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2252664/en-us - Security Settings for ActiveX controls and OLE objects in Office 2003 and in the 2007 Office suite
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/909738/en-us - A Web page that contains a custom ActiveX control may not load as expected in Internet Explorer due to defense in depth changes introduced in cumulative security update 896688 (MS05-052)
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/240797/en-us - How to stop an ActiveX control from running in Internet Explorer