Microsoft has released a patch to address the Excel KB5002914 copy-paste fix gap, but only a portion of affected users are covered, those running the .msi-based edition of Office 2016. Everyone else is still stuck with a workaround.
The original problem traces back to KB5002914, released on 8 September 2026 as part of a Patch Tuesday update. According to Office Watch, that update was part of a broad security push that fixed 966 flaws and two zero-days across Microsoft products. Somewhere in that considerable bundle of patches, a code regression crept in, and it broke some of Excel’s most fundamental functionality.
What the KB5002914 bug actually does
Microsoft confirmed the issue earlier this week, describing it in terms that will be grimly familiar to anyone who’s spent time troubleshooting silent software failures. ‘Although users try to paste content, the source remains selected and the destination is unmodified,’ the company said. Worse, ‘users receive no indication of the failure, such as a beep or error message.’ Copy-and-paste appears to complete normally; it simply doesn’t.
The bug extends beyond basic paste operations. Autofill and formula dragging are also broken, making the update a fairly thorough disruption to everyday spreadsheet work. Reports flooded Microsoft’s Q&A forums and Reddit as users tried to diagnose what looked, at first, like user error.
The affected versions span a wide range: Excel Online, Excel 2016, 2019, 2021, and 2024 are all impacted. That is most of the currently deployed Excel install base, which makes the partial nature of Microsoft’s fix all the more noticeable.
The Excel KB5002914 copy-paste fix and its limits
The corrective update, KB5002655, was released on 16 September 2026, according to Microsoft Q&A. Microsoft confirmed the update to BleepingComputer, saying it ‘fixes the known issue in KB5002914 that causes certain paste operations to fail silently.’ The company also noted awareness of ‘some user scenarios impacted by conditional formatting’ and recommended customers follow its guidance, because, per Microsoft Q&A, paste operations may still fail in workbooks containing conditional formatting even after installing KB5002655.
The fix applies only to the .msi-based edition of Office 2016. Click-to-Run editions of Office 2016, including Microsoft Office 365 Home, are not covered. Neither are Excel 2019, 2021, or 2024, nor Excel Online. A permanent solution for all affected versions is still in the works.
What to do in the meantime
Microsoft’s interim advice for those not yet covered is to use Paste Special. Users can reach it by selecting Paste Special from the Paste drop-down under the Home tab, or with the Ctrl+Alt+V keyboard shortcut, then choosing from options including Formula, Values, Values and number formats, or Paste Link.
Some users have also found that uninstalling KB5002914 entirely restores normal copy-and-paste behaviour. That option comes with a significant caveat, though: removing the update also strips out patches for remote code execution and information disclosure vulnerabilities that were bundled with it. Microsoft has published command-line instructions for uninstalling by version, but walking back a security update of that scope is not a decision to take lightly.
For Office 2016 (.msi) users, the command is: “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 and the 2021/2024 Click-to-Run editions each have their own OfficeC2RClient.exe rollback commands targeting specific build versions.
This is not the first time a Microsoft update has caught Excel users off guard in recent months. In June, a separate issue blocked Office for the web users from opening Excel and PowerPoint files, and another prevented Windows 365 users from downloading and installing the Office suite. A month later, Microsoft fixed a bug that stopped third-party applications from launching Office apps and opening documents on up-to-date Windows systems.
Microsoft says a fix covering all affected Excel versions is coming; KB5002655 available now on Microsoft Q&A is the only confirmed resolution so far.
