Microsoft Excel ActiveX Controls Disabled?

Question

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 col

Answer 1

Here is the best answer that I have found on the Microsoft Excel Support Team Blog

For some users, Forms Controls (FM20.dll) are no longer working as expected after installing December 2014 updates. Issues are experienced at times such as when they open files with existing VBA projects using forms controls, try to insert a forms control in to a new worksheet or run third party software that may use these components.

You may received errors such as:

"Cannot insert object" "Object library invalid or contains references to object definitions that could not be found"

Additionally, you may be unable to use or change properties of an ActiveX control on a worksheet or receive an error when trying to refer to an ActiveX control as a member of a worksheet via code. Steps to follow after the update:

To resolve this issue, you must delete the cached versions of the control type libraries (extender files) on the client computer. To do this, you must search your hard disk for files that have the ".exd" file name extension and delete all the .exd files that you find. These .exd files will be re-created automatically when you use the new controls the next time that you use VBA. These extender files will be under the user's profile and may also be in other locations, such as the following:

%appdata%\Microsoft\forms

%temp%\Excel8.0

%temp%\VBE

Scripting solution:

Because this problem may affect more than one machine, it is also possible to create a scripting solution to delete the EXD files and run the script as part of the logon process using a policy. The script you would need should contain the following lines and would need to be run for each USER as the .exd files are USER specific.

del %temp%\vbe\*.exd

del %temp%\excel8.0\*.exd

del %appdata%\microsoft\forms\*.exd

del %appdata%\microsoft\local\*.exd

del %appdata%\Roaming\microsoft\forms\*.exd

del %temp%\word8.0\*.exd

del %temp%\PPT11.0\*.exd

Additional step:

If the steps above do not resolve your issue, another step that can be tested (see warning below):

1. On a fully updated machine and after removing the .exd files, open the file in Excel with edit permissions.

   Open Visual Basic for Applications > modify the project by adding a comment or edit of some kind to any code module > Debug > Compile VBAProject.

   Save and reopen the file. Test for resolution. If resolved, provide this updated project to additional users.

   Warning: If this step resolves your issue, be aware that after deploying this updated project to the other users, these users will also need to have the updates applied on their systems and .exd files removed as well.

If this does not resolve your issue, it may be a different issue and further troubleshooting may be necessary.

Microsoft is currently working on this issue. Watch the blog for updates.

Source