KB5002914 - Copy/Paste Disabled

Hi @Ángel Palacios López

Based on my research, Microsoft has confirmed a known issue affecting Excel 2016, Excel 2019, Excel 2021, and Excel 2024 following the September 2026 Excel security update. This issue may cause the paste operation to fail without displaying an error, which is consistent with the behavior you described.

Microsoft is currently investigating the issue. I recommend monitoring the following article for the latest information and any permanent resolution: Description of the security update for Excel 2016: September 8, 2026 (KB5002914)

As a temporary workaround, your IT administrator may consider rolling Office back to an earlier, unaffected build, if permitted by your organization’s update and security policies. Since rolling back may remove recent security fixes, this should be reviewed and performed by your IT administrator.

If you are unsure who your administrator is, please refer to: How do I find my Microsoft 365 admin?

Alternatively, you may wait for Microsoft to release an updated build containing a fix. Once an update becomes available, please install the latest Office updates, restart Excel, and test the Copy and Paste functionality again.

I hope this information is helpful. If you have any further questions or need additional assistance, please feel free to share them in the comments below. I will be happy to help. 

https://yourwindowsguide.com/2026/09/ctrlc-and-ctrlv-not-working-in-excel.html

A temporary workaround

There are a couple of workarounds you can try while waiting for a proper fix.

One user reported that when using the Paste dropdown in Excel, the default paste option did not work, but choosing Formulas or Formulas & Numbers did.

Another user reported that Paste as Formula works as a temporary workaround.

If Ctrl+C works but Ctrl+V does not, you can also check whether Ctrl+X followed by Ctrl+V works. One affected user reported that cut and paste continued to work even though copy and paste did not.

These are workarounds, not a permanent fix.

Since this KB update only seems to affect the MSI installer one when it comes to 2016, you can run this command to roll back.

Please type cmd in the search on the taskbar. Don't press enter key yet. Instead, choose "run as administrator" to launch Command Prompt.

Then run this command. Make sure you copy the entire command, including the quotation mark at the beginning of the command.

"C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\OFFICE16\Oarpmany.exe" /removereleaseinpatch "{90160000-0012-0000-1000-0000000FF1CE}" "{27882596-A8ED-4382-9C71-6CD2DD19F732}" "1033" "0" 
 

Just to follow up -

Microsoft has released a corrective update.

For Excel 2016, KB5002665, released September 16, 2026, specifically fixes the known KB5002914 issue that caused certain paste operations to fail silently.

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/servicing/office/hotfix/excel/5002665

One caveat: Microsoft says paste operations may still fail in workbooks containing conditional formatting. So this is a confirmed fix for the original issue, but not yet a complete resolution of every paste failure scenario.