Microsoft Excel ActiveX Controls Disabled?

excel vba activex
Mike Pedersen picture Mike Pedersen · Dec 10, 2014 · Viewed 245.1k times · Source

I have some Excel worksheets that use ActiveX checkboxes to control certain activity. They worked recently but today started to give errors. I was alerted to this by a colleague, but it was still working on my computer. I checked his version of Excel against mine and his was newer. I noticed there were new Windows updates, so I did the update. After I applied pending updates, it now no longer works on my computer. I cannot check the ActiveX checkboxes any longer, and, as a part of trying to debug, it appears I cannot even add an ActiveX control to any worksheet, even a new worksheet, any more. I get an error dialog that says, "Cannot insert object." (I can still add form controls, just not ActiveX.) Anyone else experiencing this after a recent update? Any suggestions?

Thanks,

Mike

Answer

John W. picture John W. · Dec 11, 2014

From other forums, I have learned that it is due to the MS Update and that a good fix is to simply delete the file MSForms.exd from any Temp subfolder in the user's profile. For instance:

C:\Users\[user.name]\AppData\Local\Temp\Excel8.0\MSForms.exd

C:\Users\[user.name]\AppData\Local\Temp\VBE\MSForms.exd

C:\Users\[user.name]\AppData\Local\Temp\Word8.0\MSForms.exd

Of course the application (Excel, Word...) must be closed in order to delete this file.

Related questions

What is the difference between "Form Controls" and "ActiveX Control" in Excel 2010?

Using Microsoft Excel 2010, I noticed two kind of controls that can be inserted into a document: Form Controls and ActiveX Controls. What is the difference between them?

Read More
Creating Word Application using Excel VBA: Run-time error '429': ActiveX component can't create object

I am trying to save Word docs using Excel VBA, but I get the error "ActiveX component can't create object." When I debug, the error comes from the line: Set wrdApps = CreateObject("Word.Application"). It was working, then it started …

Read More
Excel 2010 ActiveX Controls No Longer Working After Windows Updates

So at work I ran into this issue after I installed the most recent Windows 7 updates (including Microsoft Office 2010 updates) - the date up the update was today (Dec 12, 2014). After the update, I opened my macro enabled workbook in Excel 2010 …

Read More