Hi - While we work to figure out what could be happening on your computer, there is a workaround that you can use to avoid opening the files as templates. If you go to the folder using Finder, and then double-click on a template file, it should open as
a new document based on that template. For example, I have an Excel file called "My Blank workbook.XLTX" and when I double-click on it in Finder, it creates a new document called "My Blank Workbook1".
You mentioned that the previous templates that you had already created were lost when you upgraded to a recent version of Office. This is definitely unexpected, since the installation should not remove existing content. I think it's worth using Finder
to search for the files by name, if you haven't done so already.
Back to the issue of the "Featured" and "Personal" tabs not showing in the "new from template" panel, please send feedback to us about this issue using the smiley-face button near the top right corner of the Excel window. If you include your email address
in the feedback, I will look it and contact you to work through the issue.
One thing to try in the meantime is to make sure you have the apps closed the next time you get an update. The update tool should verify the apps are not running while they're being updated, but I have seen a few times when the installation proceeded anyway,
and it could result in some files not getting updated properly. It seems like you'd be having other problems if that were the case, but it can't hurt to try. Maybe you've already uninstalled/reinstalled, which should have avoided an update issue such as this.
Thanks - Steve K [MS Excel]
BTW - it looks like you attached screen shots to an earlier comment on this thread, but I'm not able to see them for some reason.