The Office update (Tuesday 9th Dec 2014) has broken Active-X controls on worksheets.

The symptoms include:

- Being unable to use or change properties of any active controls on worksheets

- Error messages saying “Can’t insert object”

- Error 438 when trying to refer to an active-x control as a member of a worksheet in code

To fix it, do this:

  1. Close all Office applications.
     
  2. Do a search in Windows Explorer – make sure to include hidden and system files and folders – for *.exd files (note: that’s not *.exe !!) and delete any you find.
    Make sure you get these:
    C:\users\username\AppData\Local\Temp\Excel8.0\MSForms.exd
    C:\users\username\AppData\Local\Temp\VBE\MSForms.exd
     
  3. Reboot the computer (this is not always necessary, but probably better safe than sorry)
     
  4. Restart your Office apps and test the controls again.
     

https://support.microsoft.com/kb/3025036/EN-US?wa=wsignin1.0

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