Excel 2016 / 2019 — Copy & Paste Broken After September 2026 Update
Excel 2016 — Copy & Paste Broken After September 2026 Update
Microsoft update KB5002914 (released September 9, 2026) breaks standard paste in Excel 2016. Only Paste Special → Values continues to work. Office 2016 is end-of-life and will not receive an official fix.
- Ctrl+C appears to work — marching ants border appears — but Ctrl+V does nothing
- Right-click → Paste also fails — the menu option is present but does nothing
- Standard paste fails even on a fresh blank workbook — not file-specific
- Paste Special → Values works correctly as a temporary workaround
Update KB5002914 modifies how Excel 2016 handles its internal rich clipboard format (Biff/XLSX on clipboard). The standard Paste command relies on this format; Paste Special bypasses it by reading plain text directly from the Windows clipboard. Since Office 2016 reached end-of-life on October 14, 2025, Microsoft will not release a patch.
Uninstall KB5002914
Determine your Office installation type first — the uninstall method differs.
Open Installed Updates
Navigate to Control Panel → Programs → View installed updates
Find and uninstall KB5002914
Search for KB5002914 in the search box. Right-click → Uninstall. Restart when prompted.
wusa /uninstall /kb:5002914 /quiet /norestart
Block the update from reinstalling
Download and run Microsoft’s “Show or Hide Updates” tool, then hide KB5002914.
Get-HotFix | Where-Object {$_.HotFixID -eq "KB5002914"}No output = successfully removed. Restart Excel and test paste.
Confirm the affected build
File → Account → About Excel should show version 16.0.5569.1003. Click-to-Run cannot uninstall individual updates — you must roll back the entire Office version.
Roll back to the previous build
Close all Office applications, then run from an elevated Command Prompt:
rem Navigate to the Click-to-Run client folder cd "C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\ClickToRun" rem Roll back to build 16.0.5563.1000 (pre-September 9) OfficeC2RClient.exe /update user updatetoversion=16.0.5563.1000
Freeze automatic updates
To prevent Office from updating itself back to the broken build:
OfficeC2RClient.exe /blockuninstall
Or disable automatic updates via File → Account → Update Options → Disable Updates.
Use Paste Special → Values while the fix is applied
Instead of Ctrl+V, use:
Ctrl + Alt + V → select Values → OK
Or right-click the destination cell → Paste Special → Values.
Office 2016 is fully end-of-life
Microsoft ended all support for Office 2016 on October 14, 2025. We recommend planning migration to Microsoft 365 Apps or Office LTSC 2021 to avoid recurring breakage.