win10 security update reformatting all excel documents

AbbieCadabra

help! all my work excel documents have been completely reformatted after the latest security update over night. I can remove the update & everything goes back as it was, but then it will just auto update within a few days again as i don't believe you can turn off the updates now?

how can i correct what it's done?
or is there a way to stop it, not recommended I know, but i can't use my excel docs with what it's done to them!

thanks

Heedtheadvice

That is a rather odd thing to happen!

If it is the security update then it might just be something associated with it rather than the update itself.
Do you have any add-ons running in Excel?
Are macros enabled?
Has the screen resolution changed?

I would be inclined to think along the lines of coincidence initially.

It would be useful for anyone trying to help if you could be specific rather than general. What formatting exactly has changed, a picture of before and after (if you can) would be good otherwise a good description?

googler

There must be millions of W10 Excel users worldwide. Any other reports of this elsewhere?

If it's your 'work' Excel docs, then ... do you have an IT support desk? Does your work have any backup strategy for them? etc etc

AbbieCadabra

Heedtheadvice wrote: »

That is a rather odd thing to happen!

If it is the security update then it might just be something associated with it rather than the update itself.
Do you have any add-ons running in Excel?
Are macros enabled?
Has the screen resolution changed?

I would be inclined to think along the lines of coincidence initially.

It would be useful for anyone trying to help if you could be specific rather than general. What formatting exactly has changed, a picture of before and after (if you can) would be good otherwise a good description?

definitely not a coincidence, it's done it twice now & restored ok as soon as I remove the update that installed overnight.

sorry, I can't answer any of those questions as I don't know, self taught just on excel basics i'm afraid & not technically minded.

can't really show copies of before & after as not info I want to display online, not helpful I know, sorry. whole exel sheet has just gone tiny & even if I increase zoom, column widths & other formatting has been changed so i'd need to individually alter lots of settings to get it back where it was.

unforeseen

Is it actually reformatting it or is it just the view you see. Try viewing the spreadsheet on a different computer.

AbbieCadabra

googler wrote: »

There must be millions of W10 Excel users worldwide. Any other reports of this elsewhere?

If it's your 'work' Excel docs, then ... do you have an IT support desk? Does your work have any backup strategy for them? etc etc

'work' as in our company accounts so no IT dept., i'm it!

I couldn't find anything for a recent update with this issue, but this appears to be similar previous update
https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/msoffice/forum/msoffice_word-mso_win10-mso_archive/excel-and-word-documents-formatting-changed-all-of/3f546338-462e-421e-a634-128bbfc93f6f

there is no work around for auto updates, even if it downloads auto I can't stop the update happening? I found some info to change Wi-Fi settings to metered, but I don't appear to have the required settings on my win10. edit: found a better explanation & have now set Wi-Fi to metered so will download updates but not install until I say so

AbbieCadabra

unforeseen wrote: »

Is it actually reformatting it or is it just the view you see. Try viewing the spreadsheet on a different computer.

no other computer available unfortunately. these are our company accounts that I do the admin for, all pretty simple on excel worksheets for monthly accounts, wages, vat etc.

agrinnall

AbbieCadabra wrote: »

no other computer available unfortunately. these are our company accounts that I do the admin for, all pretty simple on excel worksheets for monthly accounts, wages, vat etc.

Copy the files onto a flash drive and look on them on a computer at home (assuming that's not a worse breach of company policy than having unusable documents).

Head_The_Ball

unforeseen wrote: »

Is it actually reformatting it or is it just the view you see. Try viewing the spreadsheet on a different computer.

Or alternatively, view one or more of the excel spreadsheets in Windows Explorer and see if the 'Date Modified' date has changed to the date and time of the update or if it remains as the date and time the spreadsheet was last modified.

If the former it would suggest that the update is modifying the spreadsheet.

If the latter it would suggest that it is the view function that has been changed and the spreadsheet file is unchanged.

OP, do you know how to do that?

pogofish

If you set your connection to metered, it will put off the update problems pro-tem.

Then back up anything important till a solution is found

Heedtheadvice

This post might seem a bit critical but the aim is to highlight concerns so you an consider a way forward. Like other posters (I think) warning bells ring a bit for the following reasons:

You are a company with lots of information stored that is important to you;
On one pc;
You are it, no IT support, and you do not seem to have the expertise to manage your system;
Do you have a disaster recovery procedure (from accidentally deleted files, corruptions, update issues (!), Disk or computer failure etc.
Do you have a backup regime
Presume you have restore points set up from your posts.
Is it acceptable if your computer is unavailable for a week or more of what would be the cost to the business?

If you cannot post even anonymised copy or extracts of your workbooks you will really need to be able to describe exactly what the formatting problem is (we cannot guess or see!).
Have tried that action taken in the link you provided?

I would also suggest that as a business you are taking a risk relying on a forum like this to solve your problem (it relies on goodwill).

Two suggestions:
Can you do without the internet? Probably unlikely but if you restore to the working situation and then disconnect/disable that might be a short term workable solution till the longer term problem is solved

Secondly can you make another workbook with dummy data that you would be happy to post on here to show the errors in a before and after view or even send to one of us to investigate?