Microsoft fixes broken copy and paste for Excel 2016 users

Microsoft has fixed a known issue that causes copy-and-paste failures for some Excel users after installing the September 2026 KB5002914 security update.

This follows a wave of customer reports on the Microsoft Q&A forums and Reddit that KB5002914 breaks 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 when it confirmed these issues earlier this week and blamed them on what it described as a code regression. "When this issue occurs, users receive no indication of the failure, such as a beep or error message."

However, while this bug affects Excel Online and Excel 2024, 2021, 2019, and 2016, Microsoft has released a fix that will only resolve these issues for Excel 2016 users.