Following widespread complaints on social platforms and support forums, Microsoft has acknowledged that the KB5002914 security update released in September 2026 is causing copy-and-paste failures in Excel, along with disruptions to autofill and formula dragging capabilities.

The issue impacts Excel 2024, 2021, 2019, and 2016 installations. Microsoft stated in an updated support document: "Although users try to paste content, the source remains selected and the destination is unmodified."

The company added: "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."

While Microsoft continues its investigation, users experiencing the problem have discovered that removing KB5002914 restores normal copy-and-paste behavior. The patch can be uninstalled using administrator-level Command Prompt commands specific to each Office version.

Uninstall instructions by Office version

Open Command Prompt with administrator privileges and execute the appropriate command for your Office installation:

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

Context: KB5002914 and recent Office issues

Microsoft deployed KB5002914 as part of its September 2026 Patch Tuesday cycle to address multiple remote code execution and information disclosure vulnerabilities.

This is not the first recent disruption affecting Office users. In July, Microsoft resolved a bug preventing third-party applications from launching Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Access, and other Office applications or opening documents on current Windows systems. A month earlier, the company fixed an issue blocking Office for the web users from accessing Excel and PowerPoint files, and another preventing Windows 365 users from downloading and installing the Office suite.

On Monday, Microsoft released emergency out-of-band updates to address Remote Desktop Services failures introduced by the September 2026 security updates, along with separate issues affecting Hyper-V and USB audio functionality on certain Windows versions.