Excel 2016 broken after update

Question

We have reports from several users running Excel 2016 32-bit and 64-bit versions.

Excel does not start at all, only the splash screen is shown and stays forever.

Mostly on Win11.

I had a similar problem on Win 10 in Excel 2016 now.

Excel reported things like "Sorry, we couldn't find :\ExcelTools\MyTools.xll Is it possible it was moved, renamed or deleted?" while the refered file was ok at the correct location. But note the wrong path reported by Excel, starting with ":"

I managed to solve this by uninstalling the "Security update for Microsoft Excel 2016 (KB5002653) 32-bit Edition" and now Excel works fine

But in Windows 11 these updates can not be uninstalled?

How can I remove them?

They are making our PCs unusable for many users, this is a critical situation.

***Moved From Windows / Windows 11 / Windows update***

Answer 1

Here is the patch to fix this issue.

November 19, 2024, update for Excel 2016 (KB4484305) - Microsoft Support

Choose 32 or 64 bit.

This does fix it.

Shame it took so long. I was struggling with this issue on a large network fortunately only a small number of workstations affected.
Was informed by a colleague in another department.

Microsoft were not proactive about spreading the word, all the forums and help site were the same no fix.

Cheers.

Answer 2

Hi, Vaclav Kvasnicka

Welcome to the Microsoft community.

You mentioned that Excel 2016 was corrupted after update and could not be launched, which was resolved by uninstalling the “Microsoft Excel 2016 (KB5002653) 32-bit Edition” security update on Win10, but it seems that it cannot be removed on Win11.

Regarding this issue, the update no longer loads add-ins for Excel 2016, here is a related thread that you can refer to by clicking here: Excel 2016: Add-Ins lassen sich nach Update KB5002653 nicht mehr laden - Microsoft Community( It needs to be translated into the appropriate language for you to view it, thank you for your understanding.）

In addition, here are some possible solutions you can refer to:

1. Check update history: In Windows 11, you can view and manage updates by following these steps:
   • Open the Settings application.
   • Select Update and Security.
   • Click View Update History.
   • On the Update History page, you can view installed updates and try to find and uninstall problematic updates.
2. Uninstalling updates using a command prompt: If you are unable to uninstall an update through the Settings application, you can try using the command prompt: wusa /uninstall /kb:5002653
   • Follow the prompts to complete the uninstall process.
   • Run Command Prompt as administrator.
   • Enter the following command and press Enter:

We look forward to your feedback on the results of the operation.

Cherry.Z - MSFT | Microsoft Community Support Specialist

Answer 3

Hi, Cherry.Z and thanks for your reply.

As I described, this bug causes 2 types of erroneous behavior on our PCs.

Most users (now more than 10 in our office, typically on Win11) get just the splash screen and have to close the process manually, no indication of a specific add-in loading problem is given.

Others get the more informative error message described in my original post. The add-ins can be loaded manually but the repair is only temporary. Being on Win10, these users can remove the update and Excel works again.

For the 'splash screen' users (Win11 does not allow us to uninstall the corrupt update) we resorted to reinstall of the whole Office. At some cases this did not help as Windows immediately updated and installed the erroneous KB again :-(

I hope that a corrected patch is made available asap because this is really very annoying bug.

Best regards,

Vaclav

Answer 4

Dear Vaclav Kvasnicka,

Regarding this issue, it is mentioned in the Description of the security update for Excel 2016: November 12, 2024 (KB5002653) - Microsoft Support :

After you install this update, Excel add-ins that were enabled the last time that you used Excel might not load correctly when you open Excel. To work around this issue, open the add-ins manually by double-clicking them or selectingFile > Open.

In the meantime, perhaps you could try resetting Office through the registry:

Press Win+R, type regedit, and click OK to open the registry. Find the following registry subkey and delete it:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office\16.0\Common\Identity

*Disclaimer:*Generally, modifying registry subkeys or group policies is intended for advanced users, administrators, and IT professionals. It can help resolve certain issues, but if you incorrectly modify the registry, serious problems might occur. Therefore, please be sure to follow these steps carefully. To further protect yourself, back up the registry before making any changes. This way, if a problem occurs, you can restore the registry. For more information on how to back up and restore the registry, click on How to back up and restore the registry in Windows - Microsoft Support to view the article.

Looking forward to you sharing any results of your operation with us.

Cherry

Answer 5

If you're using WSUS you can remove this by using Approve update for uninstallation in WSUS

Usually, you allow or deny updates for installation, but you can also approve them for removal.

You can get this done using the GUI of the WSUS console.

Mark the unwanted update, in this case KB5002653, and check the detailed information in the lower section under Removable to see whether it supports uninstallation.

Check whether an update can be removed at all

If it can, select the Approve command from its context menu. In the dialog box that appears, open the dropdown menu of the appropriate computer group and check the Approved for Removal option.

Approve update for removal

If you want to set a date on which the clients will immediately start removing the updates, open the dialog for approving the updates again, and run the Deadline command for the same computer group.

Specify the date on which the clients should remove the relevant update

If you do not specify a deadline, the PCs will remove the unwanted updates only when new updates are pending installation.

After successful approval, the status of the update in the overview changes to Remove if you have applied the action to all computers. However, if you assign the uninstall operation only to one group, the console displays Mixed in the Approval column.

Approval status of an update after release for uninstallation