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December patch for Office – Fail!

One of the automatically installed patches for Office causes a new bug!  Ouch.

The new bugs aren’t common but even so, they are embarrassing.

You can find the details under the Knowledge Base article headed ““Cannot insert object” error in an ActiveX custom Office solution after you install the MS14-082 security update”.

Most people won’t realize there’s a problem until it’s too late because you won’t find a link or warning about this bug in the details of the broken patch.

The only people affected are those with ActiveX controls in a document and you try to insert or edit the properties of that control.

It seems that in some cases, you’ll get errors.  One of which is ‘Cannot insert object’.  In other cases an Excel worksheet with macros won’t run the macros.

Microsoft has listed three ‘symptoms’ with separate fixes for each in the KB article mentioned above.  No word on when a fix for the buggy patch will be available.

One of the troublesome situations is having multiple versions of Office on the one computer. In this case Office 2007 or Office 2010 as well as ‘Click to Run’ Office 2013.   This isn’t the first time ‘side by side’ Office installs cause trouble.  While ‘side-by-side’ is supported by Microsoft, it’s not a good idea and liable to cause hassles.

These days virtual machines are better, safer and more flexible for any ‘side-by-side’ or multi-version situations, not just Microsoft Office.  Windows 8 for Microsoft Office users has a step-by-step guide to virtual machines (VM) in Windows 8, how to make your first VM and how to install Office in it.

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