Cut-N-Paste Options Greyed Out In Excel

Yesterday I encountered a user who could not cut-and-paste in Microsoft Excel. The options to Cut, Copy, and Paste where disabled - aka 'greyed out' - in the menus. Seems like an odd condition.

The conclusion is that Excel's configuration had become corrupted. Resolution involves exiting Excel, deleting Excel's customized configuration, and then restarting the application. Lacking a set of configuration files the application regenerates a new default configuration and cut-and-paste functionality is restored.

Excel stores its per-user configuration in XLB files in the %%PROFILEDIR%%\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Excel folder. Navigate to this folder and delete all the XLB files - with all Microsoft Office applications shutdown.

After resolving this issue I found a more user approachable solution - no diddling in the file-system - but with Excel now working I was not able to verify it [and I do not know how to deliberately corrupt Excel's configuration].

1. Right click on a sheet tab and select "View Code"
2. From the "View" menu select "Immediate Window" if it's not already displayed.
3. Paste the following into the "Immediate Window" and press enter: Commandbars("Cell").Reset

Of course, deleting the per-user configuration in Excel will delete the user's customizations.