VBA Menu and Toolbars Went Missing

Question

The toolbars (menu bar and quick access bar) are missing in the Visual Basic Editor in Excel. What happened? I can't click anywhere to find them to enable again!

e.g. -

full size

Solution

This sometimes happens if you leave the VBE open and the computer goes to sleep or hibernates. It's difficult to reproduce, but there's a simple fix -

Just close the VBE window and reopen it. I know, this is your default first troubleshooting step, but you forgot it in haste. It's OK, I won't tell anyone.

MS KB829059 talks about Outlook 2003 and 2007, but this applies across the entire Office Suite in 2003 and 2007.

Comments

[Admin]

I believe the first thing to check would be View ► Toolbars ► Standard. Stating "I can't click anywhere to find them" without specifying what has actually been tried is completely useless.

[Mr. Mascaro]

@Jeeped, that might be possible if the menu bar was shown...

[Admin]

@jbarker2160 - good point. I should have specified trying Alt+V, T to see if the menus commands are available but not visible.

[Raystafarian]

@Jeeped you should add that to the answer as a first-step.

[Admin]

@Raystafarian your advice is still helping people today. Thanks for that answer

[Joe]

@Raystafarian I've got the same problem with Office 2016 and re-opening the VBE window doesn't help! I also tried the following code in the direct window, without success: Application.VBE.CommandBars(1).Visible = True Application.VBE.CommandBars(1).Position = msoBarTop Application.VBE.CommandBars(1).RowIndex = 0 Any other hints?

[Raystafarian]

@Joe what's missing?

[Joe]

@Raystafarian Same as in the question - menu bar and quick access bar. But I think I found the solution now. I had the Tablet Mode activated in Windows 10. After I deactivated it and reopened the VBE, the menu bar and quick access bar appeared again.

[Allen Gould]

@Raystafarian And thanks from 2020, where it's still a bug in Office '16.