Last Excel update broke my Plugin

[Henrik Bergström]

Excel 2016MSO 

16.0.13901.20366 (2021-04-14)  32bit and 64bit.

Info.

After last Excel update my .xll plugin stopped working for all users 32bit and 64bit.
The plugin did not load and no warnings in Excel.

Fix,

1. Update Excel to last version on dev pc. 

2. Recompile plugin

Now it works again, but All users need to upgrade to new .xll version.

Br,

Henrik

[Backstop Solutions]

We ran into several customers who needed to add the location of our .xll file to trusted locations before the add-in would load. Prior to the updates shipped by MS last week, these add-ins were working fine, but some undocumented change in the update seems to require this trusted location.

I wonder if you ran into the same issue and updating your excel actually fixed the issue.

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[Henrik Bergström]

Thanks,
Is there any way to automate this?
Would be great to skip this manual step in installation.

Br,

Henrik

[Backstop Solutions]

We're still trying to get a handle on the impact of the updates, but to us, it prevents the add-in from being loaded and any of our code running, including excel dna. so not much opportunity within the xll itself. 

I think your best bet would be to include some registry updates in an installer. We currently just ship the .xll file and ask the user to install into their excel, so Im pretty much out of luck unless i want to build an installer. 

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[Henrik Bergström]

Thanks,

I also ship the Xll and tell user how to install.
Now I added instructions for Security location.
Not best solution, but it works,

Br,

Henrik

[Govert van Drimmelen]

If you’re encountering this issue, won’t you please press the File -> Feedback -> Send a Frown button (Alt F K D) in Excel?

Just say some of your .xll add-ins stopped working with the new update, and whatever other details you like.

 

If you encounter this issue of the .xll completely failing to load without showing any errors, please post back with the Excel version so we can track it. I suspect the issue is already solved in an update, since I can’t reproduce it in my version 16.0.14007.20000.

 

-Govert

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[Backstop Solutions]

Thanks, Govert. I will do that. I'm hopeful this will blow over if you cant reproduce with the latest version. I'm trying to get that update and verify on my side as well. 

We did find information on the April 2021 release notes indicating they expected some issues loading add-ins, but it seems like there is a bug preventing loading signed add-ins in that version of 2016. From our testing and reports from our users, no one has seen the notification described in the documentation.  

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/topic/side-effects-after-you-apply-april-2021-security-updates-for-office-kb5003251-de10fec5-1ccc-469d-a11b-18ff4ce0d999

From this document, you can find this document which tells you how to repair, including making sure your add-ins are running from a trusted location. They also reference a registry key, SkipSignatureCheckForUnsafeXLL. I havent found much documentation on it, but our XLL is signed with an EV certificate; not sure how that signature check could fail 

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/add-ins-and-vba-macros-disabled-20e11f79-6a41-4252-b54e-09a76cdf5101

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[Backstop Solutions]

To be clear, I am able to reproduce the issue with the same version as OP, 16.0.13901.20366. 

[Backstop Solutions]

Commenting that i enrolled my machine in the betachannel for office, updated to excel 16.0.13901.20436 and am no longer able to reproduce the issue.