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

Good information Sean

Answer 3

Yes unfortunately the patch is not successful in resolving the issue on every machines.

At this stage the only way to get Excel working again is to restart or quickest way open Task Manager > search Excel > right click and select End task.

For some reason Excel stays running in the background and will not open until closed in Task Manager.