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, 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 3

This update does not fix the issue. Excel still gets stuck trying to open. All other Office apps are fine.

Answer 4

This update is trash, people should not have to read the notes to see if you decided to blow up Excel with stupid nonsense.

Answer 5

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