Updates broke my buttons! (Excel 2010)

[Leif]

A quantity of updates were installed last night:

y.jpg

and one of them seems to have had an adverse effect on a workbook. It was originally created in Excel 2000, and included various buttons, e.g.

x.jpg

and these no longer work. (The cursor no longer sees them as 'buttons' and clicking on them does nothing.)

I can get round it by replacing the buttons, but intrigued as to why this has happened.

Anyone got any ideas?

[HansV]

I can't find any mention of this on the Microsoft forums (yet) - problems are generally reported quickly there. I'll keep an eye out.

[Leif]

Thanks!

[rory]

You could try the old standard of deleting the .exd files from your computer (with Office closed) and see if that makes a difference?

[Leif]

You could try the old standard of deleting the .exd files from your computer (with Office closed) and see if that makes a difference?

I did and it does!

Thanks, Rory.

[rory]

You're welcome. I've just seen another couple of mentions of this, so I could be repeating that a lot! :)

[HansV]

Thanks Rory, I've mentioned your tip (with acknowledgement) several times already.

[syswizard]

Where are the exd files located ? What is/was their purpose ?

[Rudi]

Files that contain the .exd file extension are cache files that are used by various Microsoft Office documents. These EXD files store cached information pertaining to ActiveX controls that have been inserted into the Office documents. Controls are computer objects that are stored within the Control Toolbox of an associated Microsoft Office product. Check boxes, option buttons and text boxes are examples of controls that an application might use. Each time an ActiveX control is inserted into an Office document, an EXD file is created. This allows for quicker insertion of additional controls. EXD files are temporary files that are automatically removed by the application when the file is no longer needed.

.EXD files are located at:
C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Forms and
C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Local\Temp\Excel8.0\ and
C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Local\Temp\VBE\

[Jan Karel Pieterse]

And sometimes they are not removed, causing havoc when something out of the ordinary happens, such as an update. I suffered from the same problem yesterday.

[syswizard]

Does anyone know if this office update fixes any VBA-related issues ?

[HansV]

I think it merely contained security fixes.

[ExcelClout]

There's a way to rename the *.exd files in VBA even when Excel is running, which also can fix the issue. I've posted the VBA snippet on my website. If you need to distribute your spreadsheets, add the snippet to your spreadsheets, and they should be immune to the Microsoft patches.

http://www.excelclout.com/microsoft-upd ... trols-fix/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[HansV]

Welcome to Eileen's Lounge, and thanks for the tip!

[HansV]

Microsoft has released a 'Microsoft Fix it' that should solve at least part of the problems: see "Cannot insert object" error in an ActiveX custom Office solution after you install the MS14-082 security update.

[VegasNath]

LOL, Great to see this post now :)

I had this issue a few weeks back where many of my spreadsheets using activex controls ceased to work. It took about 2 days to find that deleting the temp files offered a (short term) solution. I believe a fix was eventually deployed a few day's later.....

Microsoft, my greatest enemy!

Not sure if this could be impacting 2010 now, as I am seeing the same issue there today :(

It's funny what you forget in a few weeks!!!!

[HansV]

Hi Nathan,

The problem occurred in all versions of Excel.

[VegasNath]

Thanks Hans

[HansV]

Microsoft has released an update on March 10, 2015 that should correct the problem with ActiveX controls.

Word 2007: http://support.microsoft.com/KB/2956109" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Excel 2007: http://support.microsoft.com/KB/2956103" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
PowerPoint 2007: http://support.microsoft.com/KB/2899580" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Word 2010: http://support.microsoft.com/KB/2956139" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Excel 2010: http://support.microsoft.com/KB/2956142" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
PowerPoint 2010: http://support.microsoft.com/KB/2920812" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Office 2013: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2920754" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Word 2013: http://support.microsoft.com/KB/2956163" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
PowerPoint 2013: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2965206" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[Leif]

Thanks, Hans!