If you're having trouble with copy and paste in Excel, you're not doing it wrong; it's simply been disabled by Microsoft's latest Patch Tuesday update.
Unfortunately, it's going to be like that for some time, as there isn't a fix, at the time of writing.
Patch Tuesday is a monthly update from Microsoft where it fixes and updates various parts of its software. Much of it focuses on Windows security and improvements to its suite of applications.
However, these fixes sometimes cause problems elsewhere. Case in point: the latest security patch for Excel has taken down the copy-paste function. Users first reported issues with Excel 2016 after the update, known as KB5002914, was installed. Soon after, users reported the issue in other versions of Excel, and Microsoft has acknowledged it and said it is working on a fix.
Under 'known issues', Microsoft posted: "In Microsoft Excel 2024, 2021, 2019, and 2016, the paste operation might fail silently. Although users try to paste content, the source remains selected, and the destination is unmodified. 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."
Bugs and issues are expected when updating a sprawling software stack like Microsoft's, and the company's Patch Tuesday releases have been known to come with some downsides. In May, bugs where images would not display inside mail were reported, and in June, the main email messages were hidden. Both were a result of monthly updates.
Thankfully, Microsoft has spotted and acknowledged this issue introduced by KB5002914. Unfortunately, it has yet to come back with a fix, so there isn't anything you can do except painstakingly type out everything in Excel.
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