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Problems opening .xlsm files in Excel 2016; macros not loading/working

Anonymous
2015-11-17T23:22:11+00:00

Five days ago I upgraded to Office 2016 from Office 2013 products. I've had an Office 365 subscription for the past couple years.

The issue I have is that, when I try to open an xlsm file that includes macros, I receive the following message, for example:

After pressing "yes", I get the following:

When I press "close", the file is open any buttons attached to macros will not function. Furthermore, under the Developer tab, the Visual Basic and Macros buttons are grayed out. 

I've tried opening many different .xlsm files with the same or similar result. I couldn't manage to find any of my xlsm files with macros that would open without error. I can't seem to find a solution for this although similar problems have surfaced in older versions of Excel.

Thanks a bunch

Microsoft 365 and Office | Excel | For home | Windows

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  1. Anonymous
    2015-11-20T20:54:11+00:00

    I have this same problem and the issue is I cannot figure out how to enable the VBA options...

    I have Office 365 home and it worked well as Office 2013.  It also worked well with Office 2016, for a while, but after the latest Windows 10 build install, Office 2016 no longer runs any macros.  Also, if I look at the Developers TAB Macros and VBA buttons are all greyed out.  Even if I create a new .xlsm file...

    I uninstalled and re-installed a couple times to no avail...   How do I get this to work again?

    Please help .

    Mike

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  2. Anonymous
    2015-11-20T22:26:30+00:00

    Doug,

    I decided to call MS support to resolve the issue. After nearly an hour on the phone, the conclusion was that it is a known problem with Office 2016 macro support and the advice given was to revert to Office 2013 products until the issue has been resolved. So that's what I did and the macros work fine in Excel 2013. Thanks for your interest.

    Jason

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  3. Anonymous
    2015-11-22T04:32:53+00:00

    Fortunately, I hadn't explored many of the new features in Office 2016 to know what I'm giving up by reverting back to Office 2013. I did like the green themed background though. I guess my computer does these Office/Windows 10 updates without me knowing about it. I should probably figure out how to bring up the version history of these updates.

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  4. Anonymous
    2017-12-12T19:23:29+00:00

    December 2017 and this is still an issue. MS does not seem interested in resolving this issue.

    It is not a problem on my home computer, but is on my office computer. Since I work as a contractor for the federal government, I don't have the option of making any of the changes suggested in this thread.

    We do have a simple work-around, though. Save the problem files as Excel 97-2003 *.xls and you have your VBA and macros back.

    Hope this helps,

    D Horton

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  5. Anonymous
    2015-11-20T04:16:28+00:00

    Thanks for responding Doug. The problem is not with a single xlsm file, but with every xlsm I have. Whichever one I choose to open, it gives me the same or similar error as I mentioned above. Macros will not work. All of these xlsm files were created in versions of Excel earlier than Excel 2016. This issue appears to be with the upgrade to Office 2016 I did a week ago. I've never seen these errors before in Excel 2013 or prior versions.

    Furthermore, I just did a quick test: I created a new xlsm file (the first xlsm file I've created in Excel 2016). Right away I see that on the Developer ribbon the Visual Basic and Macros buttons are grayed out. Changing the Macro Settings to "Enable all Macros" doesn't help.

    The next thing I tried was to create a Word docm file and marco. Starting with a new docm file, I ran the macro recorder with the following error:

    The heading of this error box says that when the software was installed, I chose not to install support for macros or controls. I'm pretty sure I wasn't asked whether or not I wanted macro support when I upgraded to Office 2016. Again, on the Developer ribbon the Visual Basic and Macros buttons are grayed out. I also see that in Outlook, on the Developer ribbon, the Visual Basic button is grayed out. The common thread seems to be a faulty upgrade? Should I do a complete re-install of everything? 

    Thanks

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