vba - ScreenUpdating = False fails in Excel 2013 and 2016

Long-running, high-end Excel-based applications that I developed years ago and that run beautifully in Excel 2007 and 2010 look like Amateur Hour in Excel 2013 and 2016 because Application.ScreenUpdating = False no longer works reliably.

The screen unfreezes apparently when VBA code copies a preformatted worksheet from the macro workbook into a new workbook, although other circumstances must trigger it as well.

I’ve seen the threads on this subject that recommend “fiddling with the code” or “calling the code in a subroutine”. Unfortunately, I have to maintain hundreds of Excel applications each with thousands of lines of code and hundreds of users who are about to migrate to Office 2016, so rewriting is not an option. How can I recover Excel’s former elegance?

Answer

Here is a technique that helps reduce flickering and preserves the StatusBar message.

Application.Cursor = xlWait
Application.ScreenUpdating = False
. . .
Set wkbNewBook = Workbooks.Add

ThisWorkbook.Windows(1).Visible = False
. . .
ThisWorkbook.Windows(1).Visible = True
wkbNewBook.Activate
Application.ScreenUpdating = True
Application.Cursor = xlDefault