KB5002914 makes paste fail silently in Excel on Windows 11 and 10 (September 17, 2026)

What Microsoft confirmed

BleepingComputer reported on September 15, 2026 that Microsoft had confirmed the fault in an updated support document. Microsoft's wording is precise: "Although users try to paste content, the source remains selected and the destination is unmodified." It adds that users receive no indication of the failure, such as a beep or error message. Notebookcheck reported on September 14, 2026 that Microsoft added the known issue to the update description on September 10, two days after release.

A separate Microsoft service alert, quoted in the same BleepingComputer report, names Excel 2024, 2021, 2019 and 2016. It says "a code regression contained within a recent service update is causing impact." It also says development and validation of individual fixes for each affected version is ongoing, and that Microsoft will give an estimated timeline once it has one. Microsoft's support page for KB5002914 describes it as the September 8, 2026 security update for Excel 2016, and notes that the Download Center package applies to the MSI edition of Office 2016, not to Click-to-Run editions. Microsoft has also published KB5002665, which it dates September 16, 2026 and describes as a fix for the KB5002914 paste failure on the MSI edition of Office 2016 only. The same page says paste can still fail in a workbook that contains conditional formatting, and gives Paste Special with Formulas, Formulas & Number Formatting, Values, Values & Number Formatting or Link as the workaround.

KB5002914 is an Office update. It is separate from KB5124008, the Windows 11 update behind the USB audio failure I covered in the September 13 post.

What people at the keyboard see

Windows Latest's own tests match Microsoft's description. You copy a cell, paste it on the same sheet or another one, and nothing happens. Opening a second copy of Excel does not help. The original cells stay selected and nothing says the paste failed. Windows Latest first saw reports around September 9, the day after the update, on Reddit and on Microsoft's own forums.

Some reports go further than paste. Windows Latest says users told it that dragging cells to copy formulas stopped working, which Microsoft has not confirmed. In one case Excel crashed and relaunched on its own. Separately, one user found Excel.exe version 16.0.5569.1003 and exception code 0xc0000005 in Event Viewer. Notebookcheck adds reports that copying a whole worksheet inside a workbook stalls, and one Reddit report from an Office LTSC 2021 user that VBA macros stopped running until a rollback.

This is an Excel fault, not a Windows clipboard fault. Windows Latest says the reports span Windows 10 22H2 and Windows 11 25H2 alike. It separates it from the long-standing Windows behavior where paste fails because another process has locked the clipboard.

Which installations are in scope

Notebookcheck points out that the four named versions are the perpetual releases of Office, installed either from an MSI package or through Click-to-Run. KB5002914 itself is the Excel 2016 package: its support page says it applies to the MSI edition of Office 2016 and not to Click-to-Run. The other three versions took the same regression in their September Click-to-Run builds, which is why Windows Latest's rollback route for them is a build change rather than an uninstall. Notebookcheck's readers also reported the LTSC editions of Office 2021 and 2024. Microsoft does not list Microsoft 365 as affected. Notebookcheck points to a single, unconfirmed report on a German admin forum of a clipboard error in Microsoft 365 Apps for Business, Version 2608, Build 20326.20144, where the copied row still pasted.

The difference matters for any rollback. On an MSI installation, KB5002914 is a single update that can be removed. Click-to-Run does not allow single updates to be removed, so the whole Office installation has to go back to an earlier build, and Windows Latest notes that this takes Word and PowerPoint back with it. Excel's File, then Account page shows your Office edition and build. I would read it before choosing a remedy.

The workarounds, and what they cost

Paste Special is the route Windows Latest and Notebookcheck both land on, and the one Microsoft lists on the KB5002665 page. Copy the cells, select the destination, press Ctrl+Alt+V and choose Values or Formulas. Windows Latest spells out the cost. Values pastes the displayed results, so a calculated number becomes a fixed value. Formulas keeps the formulas but not all of the source formatting.

Two more routes are worth trying. The Office Clipboard pane, opened from the small arrow in the Clipboard group on the Home tab, shows what you copied inside Excel. Pasting into Word and copying back out of Word also works, and in most cases loses formulas and some formatting.

Removing the update restores paste. BleepingComputer reported on September 15 that affected users had confirmed this. The cost is the reason Windows Latest advises against it: KB5002914 closes 29 Excel vulnerabilities, per Notebookcheck, several of them allowing remote code execution. Notebookcheck calls that a bad trade at a desk where files from strangers arrive every day. It also warns against a forum tip to keep the update and swap in an older excel.exe, because the installation's security state is no longer traceable afterwards.

What you can do today

1. Check that this is the bug. Paste does nothing, the source stays selected and no error appears, on a PC that took September's Office updates. Excel's File, then Account page shows your Office edition and build.

2. Use Paste Special for now: Ctrl+Alt+V, then Values or Formulas. Pick Formulas when the destination has to keep calculating, and Values when only the numbers matter.

3. For formatted ranges, try the Office Clipboard pane before anything drastic.

4. Keep KB5002914 installed if Paste Special gets you through the day. It carries fixes for 29 vulnerabilities, and removing it reopens them.

5. On the MSI edition of Excel 2016, install KB5002665 instead of removing KB5002914. Microsoft dates it September 16, 2026 and says it fixes the silent paste failure, with conditional formatting still an open case on the same page. On Click-to-Run, a rollback moves all of Office to an older build, so treat it as a last resort.

6. Watch the KB5002914 support page. Microsoft says it will post more information there, and its service alert says the fixes are being built version by version.

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