@natefarm - Excellent analysis.

In my experience,' Active X' controls do not play well with others, especially when there are hidden rows and/or columns. Whenever I use 'Active X' controls, I have a routine that creates them all in VBA, and another routine to delete them all using VBA. This works great during software development.

In a production environment, before each save I put the state of Active X controls in Excel cells. For example I store:
a. Name
b. Top, Left, Width, Height
c. Visibility
I also store other important information such as which rows/columns are hidden. Then, I make all rows/columns visible. Then I save the workbook.

When the workbook opens the next time, the stored information is used to make the workbook appear as expected:
a. Restore 'Active X' controls to their proper state as required
b. Hide rows and columns as required

Usually all that needs to be done is to restore the correct height or width to ZERO value heights or widths.

It's a lot of work, but that's the price to pay for living with 'Active X'.

Lewis