Microsoft Excel 2016 Hyperlink Issue

Question

I cannot put too much of my organizations information out there regarding links, but I do promise I have done considerable research. I do not have an account with the Microsoft Partner Network, but may be noticing a problem with Excel 2016. Long story short, we are using Visual basic to open hyperlinks within a file to other excel files, get information from those files, and populate the information to the original Excel file. I do not believe there to be an error in our code. I have found this information from 2017 on another forum (I do not have access to post to) discussing exactly this:

(I just found out I cannot post screen-shots)

This was a support engineer named Doug Xu from Microsoft discussing this issue. He referenced a patch which may have caused the problem, and said they are making an emergency repair in August of 2017.

The referenced patch KB4011051 was only related to Microsoft Installer (.msi) based editions of office, and did not apply to the office 2016 Click-to-Run editions. My organization uses the referenced click-to-run editions. 

MY QUESTION:

Is it possible we are experiencing the same issue caused by update KB4011051 in 2017 on Microsoft installer (.msi) based editions, and this issue is causing hyperlinks in Excel to not function properly while running Visual Basic?

ALSO, if the problem was "fixed" is it possible it was only fixed on the .msi based editions, and NOT the Click-to-Run editions?

***Opinion***

I believe the issue may be a bit bigger than a problem created from a single patch. This process has always worked on older versions of Excel.

Another issue we are experiencing RELATED to this issue... 

I cannot post too many screenshots, due to links being present within my organizations network. However I can tell you, We have accessed trusted locations within the Microsoft Trust Center, and added our folders to trusted locations. We have enabled sub-folders also.  

MY QUESTION:

Why do we still receive the following trust prompt (which may also be causing issues):

This error message reads:

(Again just found out I cannot post screen-shots)

Some files can contain viruses or otherwise be harmful to your computer.

It is important to be certain that this file is from a trustworthy source.

Would you like to open this file?

Finally, how many folders within a folder does enabling sub-folders allow the trust center to access without any issue?

Answer 1

Hi Petercowan,

To achiene your goal that run Macro to copy info from .XLSX file, I'd like to suggest you try Record Macros to do that.

For your reference: Automate tasks with the Macro Recorder.

Thanks,

Neo

Answer 2

For short, can a macro open a .XLSX file?

Answer 3

Thank you for your response Neo! After doing some more digging, I believe the issue with the trust center may be that I am trying to trust a sharepoint location, and It is still giving me the trust prompt. I have found a few resources that say this is an issue a few people have had. I have seen something about some locations cannot be trusted, and this situaton may fall within those realms. I am running Office 365 Pro Plus Version 1708 (Build 8431.2215 Click-To-Run). 

Regarding the Hyperlinks,

I have not been able to open in safe mode (I believe because of policy within my organization). However, we are not running any add-ons to my knowledge. Also, when I manually click a hyperlink in my excel file, it does work. 

I do however, have another question for you. We are using an Excel document that has the file extension .XLSM so we can save our VBA Macros. We are coding it to open a hyperlink within our .XLSM document, get information from the other Excel document, and populate it to the .XLSM. I cannot find an answer to this question anywhere online... If we are running a macro from a .XLSM excel sheet, are we able to open an .XLSX Excel sheet and get information from it? Is there some form of security patch or issue with the .XLSX files I am unaware of? Again, thank you for any of your time in this matter.

Answer 4

Hi Petercowan,

To check whether this issue is related to Add-ins, please Start your Office in safe mode to see the outcome. If this issue doesn't happen in safe mode, please click File>Options>Add-ins>To disable Add-ins one by one to check which one caused this case.

About the KB you mentioned, since the click-to-run version of Office can updating to get the latest issue fix, I'd like to suggest you click File>Account>Update Options to check if you are using the latest version of Office. 

About Trust Center, I'd like to suggest you remove and add your location again to see the outcome.

Please also add a file with only a few sub-folders to see the outcome.

To have a better understanding about your scenario, please share with me more info as below:

1. Does the issue you mentioned in question one happen to all files or related files?
2. Can you reproduce this issue in new created Excel files?
3. The version number of your OS(Win+R>type CMD>OK) and Office(File>Account>Product Information).

Thanks,

Neo