'Protected View' message when opening Excel Program

[StuLux]

I sem to have 'broken' something as whenever I start Excel I get the message 'This file type is not supported in Protected View' but I'm not even opening a file, the message is popping up as the program itself opens not a file. I suspect I've done something in VB to cause this but I can't find a solution anywhere, as all answers seem to refer to when opening an actual file not the program itself?

 

[greenrs]

I don't think you "broke" anything. I am experiencing the same issue, and it only started n the past couple of weeks. Office update issue?

Have you resolved this?

Cheers

 

[StuLux]

I don't think you "broke" anything. I am experiencing the same issue, and it only started n the past couple of weeks. Office update issue? Have you resolved this? Cheers

Unfortunately not, I still have this issue, interested to know if others are affected too.

 

[greenrs]

I was just able to at least circumvent the issue by unchecking "Enable Protected View for files originating from the Internet". Also, I can get around it by starting excel from the Run dialogue with the "/automation" flag. I would be curious if either of those resolved your issue as well. I have no idea what it is that Excel is recognizing as originating from the internet. I have yet to figure out how to determine this.

Cheers

 

[G10]

I use Office 2019 and the same issue with Excel.

Even if I try just open Excel, no file, it still comes up with this error. Click past it and it goes, but I can't as yet figure out what caused it.

I have have ran the full repair and it still happens, which also makes me lean towards something on Microsoft's end, an update that has been applied by them.

 

[JohnDM]

Using Excel 365 and have the same issue. The problem may be related to an update from Microsoft as it is being reported by users on other sites.

In my case, the offending file that causes the message to appear when Excel starts is an AddIn that is being automatically loaded when Excel starts ... I went through the list of AddIns (in Excel 365, see: File > Options > Add-ins > Manage > Excel Add-ins > Go) and unticked/unchecked each one individually to find the offending AddIn. In my case, I wasn't really using the offending AddIn so I have left it that it does not load automatically when Excel starts and so I now do not get the message.

If you can identify a specific AddIn (or I guess could be multiple AddIns) and opt not to automatically load it/them when Excel starts then I think this is likely to be a better solution than disabling Protected View (no security risk). But I know this isn't gonna be the case for every AddIn for everyone.

As an aside, the offending AddIn had been downloaded over the internet. However, the 'mark of the web' (ie right-click the file, Properties > General and tick 'Unblock') had been removed long ago. I wonder if MS has found another way to try and stop macro-enabled files (that have been downloaded / emailed) from running?!

 

[StuLux]

Using Excel 365 and have the same issue. The problem may be related to an update from Microsoft as it is being reported by users on other sites.

In my case, the offending file that causes the message to appear when Excel starts is an AddIn that is being automatically loaded when Excel starts ... I went through the list of AddIns (in Excel 365, see: File > Options > Add-ins > Manage > Excel Add-ins > Go) and unticked/unchecked each one individually to find the offending AddIn. In my case, I wasn't really using the offending AddIn so I have left it that it does not load automatically when Excel starts and so I now do not get the message.

If you can identify a specific AddIn (or I guess could be multiple AddIns) and opt not to automatically load it/them when Excel starts then I think this is likely to be a better solution than disabling Protected View (no security risk). But I know this isn't gonna be the case for every AddIn for everyone.

As an aside, the offending AddIn had been downloaded over the internet. However, the 'mark of the web' (ie right-click the file, Properties > General and tick 'Unblock') had been removed long ago. I wonder if MS has found another way to try and stop macro-enabled files (that have been downloaded / emailed) from running?!

Thank you John, I disabled one Add In (ironically it was the XL2BB add in that this site uses to enable you to upload Excel screenshots) and this stopped the problem. I also then re-enabled the add in and the problem did not recur.