Excel workbook is not activated when you run a macro that calls the Workbook.Activate method

Symptoms

When you run a macro that calls the Workbook.Activate method in a Microsoft Excel 2013 workbook, the workbook is not activated if the ScreenUpdating property is set to False.

Workaround

To work around this issue, set the ScreenUpdating property to True before you call the Activate method. You can set it back to False, as needed, after the Activate method runs, as in the following code example:

Application.ScreenUpdating = True
Workbooks(1).Activate
Application.ScreenUpdating = False

More Information

In Excel 2013, the single document interface (SDI) feature was introduced. Excel 2013 workbooks are now top-level windows in Windows. In this configuration, Windows handles the activation of windows instead of Excel managing the child windows as it does in earlier versions of the program.

In the scenario that's described in the "Symptoms" section, Excel requests that Windows activate the workbook, but the workbook's window does not meet the Windows activation requirements.