Excel Copy and Paste Broken by Microsoft’s Own Security Update — How to Fix It
Microsoft’s September 2026 security update for Excel has broken copy and paste for users across Excel 2016, 2019, 2021, and 2024. Update KB5002914, released on September 8, silently kills paste operations with no error message and no warning, creating a serious data integrity risk. Here is how to check whether you are affected, how to fix it, and what to watch out for until Microsoft issues a proper patch.
The culprit appears to be KB5002914, released on September 8, 2026 as part of a Patch Tuesday that fixed 966 flaws and two zero-days across Microsoft products. Excel users started reporting the breakage on Reddit and the Microsoft Q&A forums the next day. Microsoft added the bug to the known issues list on the KB5002914 support page on September 10 and says only that it is researching the problem.
Microsoft downplays the broken copy and paste bug
As usual, Microsoft’s official wording is understated. According to Microsoft, copy and paste has not “stopped working”; the company says that
“the paste operation might fail silently.”
As usual, Microsoft adds the word ‘might’ to imply that the bug is something less common than it really is.
The company lists Excel 2024, 2021, 2019 and 2016 as affected. Users report the damage is wider than that.
There is no official fix and no published date for one. Paying customers might expect Microsoft to work quickly to fix such an obvious and widespread bug of its own making, but so far the company has only said that it is investigating.
Check whether you are affected in ten seconds
Open a blank workbook. Type values into A1, A2 and A3. Select them, press Ctrl+C, click C1, press Ctrl+V.
If nothing lands, you have it. That test comes from a Microsoft Q&A discussion where users used it to rule out add-ins, corrupt files, and user profiles before pinning the blame on the update.
What actually breaks
Microsoft has only formally confirmed the paste failure. The reports from users cover a good deal more:
- Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V between cells and between workbooks
- AutoFill and dragging formulas down with the fill handle, which several users flagged before Microsoft acknowledged anything
- Moving cells by dragging
- The Esc key failing to clear the marching ants around a copied range
- Fill Series, reported separately by at least one user
It appears that copying within Excel breaks, but pasting into Excel from outside still works.
There is also a second, uglier symptom. One administrator running Office Standard 2016 64 bit found Excel was not silently doing nothing, it was crashing and relaunching so fast that Ctrl+V merely looked dead. The Application event log named EXCEL.EXE version 16.0.5569.1003 as both the faulting application and the faulting module. Another user reported error 0xc0000005, an access violation.
Check the Event Viewer
If you are troubleshooting flaky Excel behavior this week, check Event Viewer before you spend an afternoon on repairs and add-in hunts.
Which versions are hit
KB5002914 is technically the MSI update for Excel 2016, and Microsoft’s page says as much.
But Click to Run builds of Office 2016 through 2024 and the Microsoft 365 apps all received updates on the same day, and the known issue names four Office releases, so the label on the patch is misleading.
Reported affected in user reports:
- Excel 2016, both MSI and Click to Run
- Excel 2019
- Office LTSC Standard 2021, including machines where the administrator could not downgrade the Click to Run version
- Office 2024 and Office 2024 LTSC
In other words, any perpetual licence version of Excel for Windows that was patched in early September 2026.
Microsoft 365 / Excel 365
Microsoft 365 is not officially listed as affected, and we found no reliable online reports of Excel 365 being affected.
The real danger is the silence
An error message is an inconvenience. A silent failure is a serious data integrity problem. It’s too easy to lose data with this bug.
For example, copy a block of figures, click into the destination, paste, keep going. If the paste quietly does nothing and you do not look back, you have a spreadsheet that is missing a chunk of data, and you saved it. Nobody gets a warning.
Check every copy/paste
Until this is patched, look at the destination cells after every paste of anything that matters, and keep a dated copy of important workbooks before large edits.
Fixing it on MSI installs
For classic MSI installations, removing KB5002914 restores copy and paste. Find your install type first: File, then Account, then About Excel.” If the version block says Click to Run, skip to the next section.
The command being shared in Microsoft Q&A discussions removes only this patch without touching the rest of Office. Run it from an elevated Command Prompt or PowerShell:
"C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\OFFICE16\Oarpmany.exe" /removereleaseinpatch "{90160000-0012-0000-1000-0000000FF1CE}" "{27882596-A8ED-4382-9C71-6CD2DD19F732}" "1033" "0"
Important: the 1033 is a language code and means US English. If the command does nothing useful, check that code against your Office language. No output means it worked. Reboot, then test paste.
A second command is reported to work, apparently only on Windows 11:
msiexec.exe /package "{90160000-0012-0000-1000-0000000FF1CE}" /uninstall "{27882596-A8ED-4382-9C71-6CD2DD19F732}" /qn /norestart
If KB5002914 does not appear in Control Panel under Installed Updates at all, one workaround is to download the standalone package from the Microsoft Download Center, install it, and then remove it through Control Panel where it will now be listed.
On a working Office 2016 MSI machine you should end up back on build 16.0.5569.1001. The broken build is 16.0.5569.1003.
Fixing it on Click to Run installs
Click to Run cannot uninstall a single update. You have to roll the whole Office build back, which is done with OfficeC2RClient.exe from an elevated Command Prompt. The builds users report as working:
- Office 2021, where the broken build is Version 2108 Build 14334.20906 released September 8: roll back to 16.0.14334.20848
- Office 2024 LTSC: roll back to 16.0.17932.20910
- Office 2019 volume builds: 16.0.10417.20197
- Office 2016 Click to Run: 16.0.5563.1000
The command pattern is:
"C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\ClickToRun\OfficeC2RClient.exe" /update user updatetoversion=16.0.14334.20848
Swap in the build number for your edition. Administrators can do the same thing across a fleet with an XML configuration file or Group Policy.
Then turn updates off
Turn updates off or Office may reinstall the broken build within days. In Excel, go to File > Account > Update Options > Disable Updates. For MSI installs, use Microsoft’s older Show or Hide Updates tool to hide KB5002914, or pause Windows Update.
Workarounds if you cannot uninstall anything
Plenty of people are on managed machines with no admin rights to undo recent updates. Some workarounds to try until your IT department catches up:
- Paste Special then Values. Right click the destination cell and use Paste Special. One writeup suggests the update changed how Excel handles its own rich clipboard format, and Paste Special sidesteps it by reading plain text from the Windows clipboard. Treat the explanation as a theory, but the workaround is widely reported to work.
- Ctrl+X, then Ctrl+Z, then Ctrl+V might restore a working paste.
- Right click paste works for some people and not others.
- Make a macro. Record a macro for Ctrl+V, then use the macro to paste instead. There are reports of this working across all sheets, which is a reasonable stopgap for anyone stuck on a locked-down machine.
One workaround to avoid
Some people are suggesting you keep the update installed and swap the new excel.exe for an older copy of the file.
Do not do this.
You end up with an Office installation made of mismatched files, which can cause stability and compatibility problems, and you lose the security fix while believing you still have it.
Also be wary of the wider category. Broken core features attract improvised fixes on forums and video sites within hours, and most of them are worse than the problem.
Special section: what Office 2016 owners need to know
This one deserves its own heading, because Office 2016 users are in the worst position of anyone.
Office 2016 reached end of support on October 14, 2025. But some Office 2016 users are still getting updates, see Office 2016 Still Gets Security Updates: Check If Yours Qualifies
Microsoft still shipped an Excel 2016 security update on September 8, 2026, and that update broke one of the most basic functions in the program. A Microsoft Q&A moderator is meanwhile telling affected users that Office 2016 no longer receives security updates, bug fixes, or technical support and that they should open a ticket through their IT department.
Both statements cannot be comfortably true at once, and that is the problem.
You cannot rely on a fix arriving for Office 2016.
But there damn well should be one.
Microsoft’s known issue text does name Excel 2016, which is a reason for cautious optimism that a fix will be released. But if you are running Office 2016 in a business, plan as though no patch is coming:
- Remove KB5002914 using the Oarpmany command above and confirm you are back on 16.0.5569.1001
- Hide the update so Windows does not push it back
- Accept that you are now running Excel 2016 with 29 unpatched vulnerabilities, including remote code execution flaws, and tighten what your users are allowed to open
- Start the migration conversation you have been putting off
One IT manager on Microsoft Q&A reported the update hitting 500 desktops and noted this was the second time in six months that cut and paste had been broken for them. If that sounds like your environment, the pattern is the story, not this single patch.
The security tradeoff
KB5002914 closes 29 separate Excel vulnerabilities, including remote code execution and information disclosure flaws. Several are the kind that can matter when someone opens a booby-trapped spreadsheet from email.
Rolling back reopens every one of them. That is a genuine risk, not a theoretical one, and it grows the longer you leave the patch off.
For a home user who is careful about attachments, removing the update for a few weeks is defensible. For a business, this is a decision for whoever owns patching, and it needs a calendar reminder attached so the patch goes back on once Microsoft fixes it. The failure mode here is not rolling back, it is rolling back and forgetting.
What to watch
Microsoft has committed only to updating the KB5002914 page when it has more to say. Keep an eye on the KB5002914 support page in Microsoft’s Excel hotfix documentation.
The next scheduled Patch Tuesday is October 13, 2026, which is the outside date for a fix on supported versions. Given that this breaks the single most used feature of a spreadsheet and is hitting entire teams at once, a more urgent update is the very least Microsoft customers should expect.
Obviously, Office Watch will be keeping an eye on this bug, both Microsoft’s response and what’s really happening.
How did this happen?
This copy/paste bug is a massive failure by Microsoft. The company will try all sorts of PR spin, but nothing can hide the size and scope of this Microsoft-made bug.
Copy/Paste is a basic function and it’s likely any Excel user will be affected sooner rather than later.
Microsoft’s testing should have detected this bug long before it got anywhere near the paying public. There have been plenty of copy/paste bugs over the years, so Microsoft’s automated testing should have long-standing routines to check that such a basic feature is working.
There’s an overreliance on AI to detect problems with not enough real people involved.
Yet again, paying customers are paying the price for Microsoft’s selective corporate memory. Patching failures get quickly forgotten, management become complacent and cut back on testing updates.
Excel Updates and Office Maintenance
If you need to check which version and build of Office you are running before deciding on a fix, Check Your Microsoft Office Version and Build walks through the steps for every edition.
Not sure whether your install is Click to Run or the older MSI type? That distinction matters for how you roll back. Click to Run vs MSI: Which Office Install Do You Have? explains the difference and how to tell.
Rolling back is straightforward once you know the steps, and How to Roll Back a Microsoft Office Update covers both install types. If you want to prevent this kind of disruption in the future, Why You Should Delay Microsoft Office Updates explains the case for waiting a week before applying patches.
Office 2016 users face a unique situation since that edition is technically past end of support. Office 2016 Still Gets Security Updates: Check If Yours Qualifies explains who still receives patches and what that means going forward.