GoKawiil
Tech News
Microsoft has released fixes for a bug that silently broke copy-and-paste, autofill, and formula dragging in Excel after installing this month's security updates, including KB5002914. Users of Excel 2016, Office LTSC 2019, 2021, and 2024 must manually install specific updates to resolve the issue, which had been widely reported on Reddit and Microsoft's Q&A forums.
Microsoft released update KB5002655 to address a silent copy-and-paste failure introduced by the September security patch KB5002914, but the fix only applies to MSI-based installations of Excel 2016. Users of Excel Online, 2024, 2021, 2019, and Click-to-Run editions of 2016 remain affected, with Microsoft citing a code regression as the cause and recommending the Paste Special workaround in the meantime.
Microsoft has confirmed a bug in its September 2026 KB5002914 security update causes copy-paste, autofill, and formula dragging to silently fail in Excel 2016, 2019, 2021, and 2024. The issue produces no error message or warning, leaving users unaware that their paste actions did not take effect. Microsoft says it is investigating but has not yet issued a fix, though affected users can uninstall the update via command-line instructions to restore normal functionality.
Users of multiple Excel versions, from Office 2016 through 2024 including LTSC 2021, report that this week's KB5002914 security update, part of Microsoft's September 2026 Patch Tuesday, disables copy-paste and formula-dragging functions. Complaints surfaced on Reddit and Microsoft's Q&A forums, with some teams reporting workflow disruptions after widespread installation of the patch. BleepingComputer could not reproduce the bug on a tested Excel 2019 build, suggesting the issue may not affect all configurations equally.