Microsoft confirms KB5002914 Excel update breaks copy and paste

Microsoft has confirmed that copy and paste may silently fail for some Excel users after installing the September 2026 KB5002914 security update.

This follows a wave of customer reports on Reddit and the Microsoft Q&A forums that the KB5002914 Office security update is breaking copy-and-paste, autofill, and formula dragging in Excel.

"Although users try to paste content, the source remains selected and the destination is unmodified," Microsoft said in an updated support document confirming these issues.

"When this issue occurs, users receive no indication of the failure, such as a beep or error message. Microsoft is researching the issue and will post more information in this article when the information becomes available."

In a separate service alert seen by BleepingComputer, Microsoft said the issues affect Microsoft Excel 2024, 2021, 2019, and 2016, and are caused by a code regression.

"A code regression contained within a recent service update is causing impact," it said. "Our development and validation of the individual fixes targeting each of the impacted versions is ongoing, and we'll provide an estimated timeline for resolution as one becomes available."

While Microsoft is still working to resolve this bug, affected Excel users have reported that uninstalling KB5002914 restores copy-and-paste functionality on impacted systems.

To do that, open a new Command Prompt window with the "Run as administrator" option and run one of the following commands (depending on your Office version):

 
Office 2016: 
"C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\OFFICE16\Oarpmany.exe" /removereleaseinpatch "{90160000-0012-0000-1000-0000000FF1CE}" "{27882596-A8ED-4382-9C71-6CD2DD19F732}" "1033" "0" 
 
Office 2019: 
"C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\ClickToRun\OfficeC2RClient.exe" /update user updatetoversion=16.0.10417.20197 
 
Office 2021 & 2024: 
"C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\ClickToRun\OfficeC2RClient.exe" /update user updatetoversion=16.0.20326.20132

Microsoft released the KB5002914 security update last week as part of its September 2026 Patch Tuesday to patch a long list of remote code execution and information disclosure vulnerabilities.

In July, Microsoft also fixed an issue that was preventing third-party applications from launching Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Access, and other Microsoft Office apps or opening documents on up-to-date Windows systems.

One month earlier, Microsoft addressed another bug that blocked Office for the web users from opening Excel and PowerPoint files, and another that blocked Windows 365 users from downloading and installing the Office suite.

On Monday, it also released emergency out-of-band updates to resolve Remote Desktop Services failures caused by the September 2026 security updates, along with Hyper-V and USB audio problems on some Windows versions.

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