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vbaexcelexcel-2010activex

Spurious change in code name of ActiveX control command button

Not a duplicate because the issue described here happens despite having deleted the *.exd files as suggested in the answer to Excel renaming Activex Controls on other computers and elsewhere.

One particular machine on our network (let's call it "Computer 2") spuriously and silently changes the code name of ActiveX command buttons placed in Excel workbooks. Whatever the (Name) property of a button was before, it returns it to the default CommandButton* scheme. (CommandButton1, CommandButton2... etc.)

Witness the screenshots below. The code name of btn2 changes to CommandButton1 when opened on Computer 2.

Why? How do I fix this?

I can even have the exact same workbook opened from the same Book1.xlsm file on a network drive simultaneously on both machines (one of them read-only, obviously). Looking at both screens at the same time, the button names are different! Computer 2 changed it.

This, of course, breaks the functionality of the buttons, because they no longer trigger their intended event code. In the example below, btn2 used to call Private Sub btn2_Click() from the sheet module and execute the code in that Sub. But on Computer 2, the button is no longer named btn2, so it doesn't trigger that event; it does nothing — or worse, if there happened to be a button called CommandButton1 before, it triggers that unrelated event.

Workbook opened on Computer 1:

enter image description here

Exact same workbook, but this time on Computer 2:

enter image description here

Now, this has happened to me before. Once or twice over the years, on a couple different machines, all my commandbuttons got renamed like that. But I've never been able to reproduce this, and I thought, corrupted workbook, no big deal.

But this happens consistently on Computer 2, every single time.

Non-ActiveX, Form Control buttons, such as "Form Button 1" in the example above, are unaffected by this issue. An obvious but tedious fix would be to get rid of all my ActiveX buttons (as suggested in this answer) and convert them into e.g. Form Control buttons, but the aim is to avoid this nuclear option.

Solution

  • A colleague found out that this can occur if there is a mix of Office 2010 and Office 2013 products installed on a machine. The procedure to fix this is:

    1. Download these patches:

    2. Close all Office programs (including Lync if you have it).

    3. Install the Office 2010 patch.
    4. Install the Office 2013 patch.
    5. Remove *.exd files from your profile and for all other user profiles. For instructions, see this Stack Overflow answer and this Microsoft solution.
    6. Restart your machine.