Microsoft's Excel Copy-Paste Breakage Affects Thousands Amid September Security Update Chaos
Microsoft's latest security update for Excel has caused widespread issues with copy and paste functionality across all supported versions of the software, including Excel 2016, 2019, 2021, and 2024.
The problem began after Microsoft released KB5002914 on September 8, which patched over 29 security issues but introduced a bug that prevents users from copying and pasting in certain cases. When attempting to paste copied content into another sheet or even the same sheet, Excel simply does nothing, leaving the original cells selected without any indication of failure.
The issue is not due to Windows design choices, as previously reported copy and paste problems were largely caused by clipboard locking. This time, it's an Excel-specific problem that Microsoft has confirmed and is currently investigating.