DEV Community: Miner Ninja

Microsoft broke Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V in Excel

Miner Ninja — Mon, 14 Sep 2026 08:38:49 +0000

Somewhere inside the September 2026 Office updates, Microsoft shot itself in the foot again. Excel decided that copying and pasting cells was no longer part of its job :)

The bug is simple. Press Ctrl+C. Select another cell. Press Ctrl+V. Nothing happens. The copied cells keep their moving border. The target cell stays empty. Excel shows no error and gives no warning. Very Windows: quiet, confident, and completely unhelpful.

Microsoft has confirmed the problem in KB5002914. It can affect Excel 2016, 2019, 2021, and 2024. AutoFill, formula dragging, and number series can also fail.

Maybe a future Office update will bring back copy and paste. Or maybe Microsoft will call it Excel Copy/Paste Plus, add an AI button, and sell it as a new feature. Until then, here is how to fix the real problem.

The good news: the failure is recoverable.

This article covers Windows perpetual/volume Office installations. Test on one machine first, especially if you manage a fleet.

Symptoms of issue

The affected machine usually has all or most of these symptoms:

Copying and pasting inside Excel fails silently
Ctrl+C/Ctrl+V works in Notepad or other applications
The copied Excel cells remain selected, but the destination does not change
Dragging the fill handle does not extend 1, 2, 3, 4... correctly
Dragging formulas or copying ranges can produce incorrect or missing results

This distinction matters. If copying fails everywhere, investigate the keyboard, clipboard service, RDP redirection, endpoint protection, or a third-party clipboard manager. If it fails only in Excel, this Office regression is a strong candidate.

Confirm the Office installation type

Run PowerShell as Administrator:

$paths = @(
  'HKLM:\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office\ClickToRun\Configuration',
  'HKLM:\SOFTWARE\WOW6432Node\Microsoft\Office\ClickToRun\Configuration'
)

$paths | Where-Object { Test-Path $_ } | ForEach-Object {
  Get-ItemProperty $_ |
    Select-Object ProductReleaseIds, VersionToReport, Platform, ClientFolder
}

Typical output:

ProductReleaseIds : Standard2021Volume
VersionToReport   : 16.0.14334.20914
Platform          : x64

If this returns nothing, the Office installation may be MSI-based. Check installed products instead:

Get-ItemProperty `
  'HKLM:\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\*',
  'HKLM:\SOFTWARE\WOW6432Node\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\*' `
  -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue |
Where-Object { $_.DisplayName -match 'Microsoft Office|Microsoft 365' } |
Select-Object DisplayName, DisplayVersion

Recovery option 1: Office 2016 MSI

For the MSI edition of Office 2016, the offending Excel security update is KB5002914. Its removal restored normal copy/paste behaviour in affected installations.

First verify that the update is present in installed programs, or that EXCEL.EXE is the affected build. Then remove KB5002914 by using Settings → Apps → Installed apps (or Control Panel → Programs and Features → View installed updates).

After removal, reboot and test Excel again.

Do not blindly uninstall Windows cumulative updates. KB5002914 is the Office/Excel update; it is not the same thing as a Windows LCU.

Recovery option 2: Click-to-Run Office 2019, 2021, or 2024

Click-to-Run Office does not let you uninstall one individual Office patch. The usual remedy is to move the entire Office installation to the last known-good build.

The following target builds were the pre-incident Volume Licensed builds:

Product:

Office 2019 Volume - 16.0.10417.20197
Office LTSC 2021 Volume - 16.0.14334.20848
Office LTSC 2024 Volume - 16.0.17932.20910

Microsoft documents the supported Office Deployment Tool (ODT) method for reverting Click-to-Run Office. If you are managing a large environment, use ODT, Group Policy, or your endpoint-management platform rather than improvising a different build number at 2 AM. Future-you deserves at least that much respect.

A practical automation script

For small and medium environments, I published a PowerShell helper that:

detects Office 2019/2021/2024 Volume Click-to-Run editions;
detects the Office 2016 MSI case;
sets the appropriate approved target build for Click-to-Run;
starts the installed Office Click-to-Run client;
waits for the expected build and stops on unsupported products.

GitHUB Repository: Excel-CopyPaste-Issue-Fixer

Replace that URL with your real repository URL before publishing this post.

Run it from an elevated PowerShell window:

powershell.exe -NoProfile -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File '.\Excel-CopyPaste-Issue-Fixer.ps1'

-ExecutionPolicy Bypass applies only to that PowerShell process. It does not permanently loosen the machine's execution-policy setting.

Stop the bad update from returning

Fixing one PC is pleasant. Fixing it again the next morning because the same package redeployed is performance art.

In your patch-management product, temporarily exclude the exact package that upgraded the affected Office family. Search for the version/build reported by the affected endpoint and create an Ignore/Exclude rule for that package. Examples from this incident include:

KB5002914 for Office 2016 MSI;
Office 2019 package containing build 10417.20207;
Office 2021 package containing build 14334.20906 or the later affected deployment build observed in your estate;
Office 2024 package containing build 17932.20976

Use the exact package name shown in your own patch console, not only the examples above. Packaging labels vary between patch vendors.

Keep the exclusion temporary. This was a security update, and rolling back means accepting a security trade-off until Microsoft publishes a corrected update. Monitor the official KB and Office release notes, test the replacement on a pilot machine, then remove the exclusion.

Verification checklist

After the rollback and reboot:

Confirm the Office build:

(Get-ItemProperty 'HKLM:\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office\ClickToRun\Configuration').VersionToReport

In Excel, type 1 and 2 in adjacent cells, select both, and drag the fill handle down.
Copy a cell containing a formula and paste it elsewhere.
Copy/paste a range within the same worksheet and into another workbook.
Confirm that Ctrl+C/Ctrl+V still works in Notepad, because at this point we are allowed one boring control test.

References

Until there is an official repair package, rollback plus a temporary patch exclusion is the least glamorous, most effective answer. Which is, admittedly, a very Windows way to solve a Windows problem.

Create an Ubuntu Cloud-Init Template on Proxmox: The Command Line Guide

Miner Ninja — Wed, 28 Aug 2024 14:44:35 +0000

This guide will demonstrate how to create an Ubuntu cloud-init template on Proxmox and set up a virtual machine with Ubuntu Server 24.04 LTS via the command line.
For the latest Ubuntu Cloud images, you can check Ubuntu Cloud Images.
All steps in this guide are to be executed on a Proxmox server.

Step 1: Prepare the Ubuntu Cloud-init Image

1.1 Download the Ubuntu Cloud Image:

To download the Ubuntu 24.04 image, use wget with the appropriate URL and save it to the /var/lib/vz/template/iso/ directory:

wget -P /var/lib/vz/template/iso/ https://cloud-images.ubuntu.com/daily/server/releases/24.04/release/ubuntu-24.04-server-cloudimg-amd64.img

-P — option tells wget to save the file in the specified directory

1.2 Verify that the file was downloaded successfully:

Make sure the file is in the correct directory:

ls /var/lib/vz/template/iso/

You should see ubuntu-24.04-server-cloudimg-amd64.img listed in the directory.

Step 2: Create a Virtual Machine Template in Proxmox

2.1. Create a new Virtual Machine (VM):

Create a VM with a unique identifier 9000 (or any other available ID):

qm create 9000 --name "ubuntu-cloud-init-template" --memory 2048 --cores 2 --net0 virtio,bridge=vmbr0

9000 — Unique identifier for the VM.
--name — Name of the virtual machine.
--memory — Amount of RAM in megabytes.
--cores — Number of CPU cores.
--net0 — Network card configuration (uses virtio with bridge vmbr0).

2.3 Import the downloaded image into the Proxmox storage

Use qm importdisk to import the downloaded image into local storage:

qm importdisk 9000 /var/lib/vz/template/iso/ubuntu-24.04-server-cloudimg-amd64.img local-lvm

9000 — ID of the virtual machine.
Path to the Ubuntu Cloud-init image file.
local-lvm — Name of the storage in Proxmox.

2.4 Configure the primary disk and VM settings:

Set up the disk using the scsi type and configure the boot options:

qm set 9000 --scsihw virtio-scsi-pci --scsi0 local-lvm:vm-9000-disk-0
qm set 9000 --boot c --bootdisk scsi0

--scsihw — Specifies the SCSI controller type (using virtio-scsi-pci).
--scsi0 — Configures the primary disk of the VM.
--boot c --bootdisk scsi0 — Sets the VM to boot from the primary disk.

2.5. Add a Cloud-init disk:

Add a Cloud-init disk to the VM:

   qm set 9000 --ide2 local-lvm:cloudinit

--ide2 — Specifies that the disk will be attached as an IDE device.
local-lvm:cloudinit — Specifies the storage and type of the disk.

Step 3: Configure Cloud-init

Configure Cloud-init settings such as user, password, and SSH key:

   qm set 9000 --ipconfig0 ip=dhcp
   qm set 9000 --ciuser ubuntu --cipassword 'yourpassword'
   qm set 9000 --sshkey "$(cat ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub)"

--ipconfig0 ip=dhcp — Configures the IP to be assigned via DHCP.
--ciuser — Specifies the Cloud-init username.
--cipassword — Sets the password for the user (replace 'yourpassword' with your desired password).
--sshkey — Adds an SSH key for the user (the contents of the public key from ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub).

Step 4: Save the Template

Convert the VM to a template:

   qm template 9000

Step 5: Use the Template to Create New Virtual Machines

5.1 Clone the template to create a new VM:

Create a new VM from the template:

   qm clone 9000 201 --name "new-ubuntu-vm"

100 — Unique ID for the new VM.
--name — Name of the new virtual machine.

5.2 Configure the new VM (if needed):

You can modify settings for the new VM, such as memory size and the number of cores:

   qm set 201 --memory 4096 --cores 4

5.3 Start the new VM:

   qm start 201

Conclusion

Now you have an guide for creating a virtual machine using the Ubuntu 24.04 Cloud-init image. This process allows you to quickly and conveniently deploy new virtual machines with minimal effort using the Proxmox command line.