Where, Oh Where Are My Custom Toolbars & Ribbons?

Applies to: Word 2003, 2007 and most add-in applications

We have all experienced on one occasion or another, a crash of Microsoft Word. Upon your re-launching Word, you notice your add-ins and custom Toolbars or Ribbons have disappeared. Somehow your add-ins have been disabled.

What are the circumstances under which an add-in is placed on the disabled items list?

By default, add-ins installed to a trusted location on your desktop are allowed to run without security notification. Sometimes, Word places even these trusted add-ins on the disabled items list, causing their features and integration to be unavailable once in Word.

This behavior occurs across all Office 2003 and 2007 applications, not just Microsoft Word. A quick Web search about disabled items mentions the entire cast of applications – including Access, Excel, InfoPath, OneNote, Outlook, PowerPoint, Publisher and Visio, in addition to Word, as applications that suffer from this predicament.

Trend: One trend we see with Word is that add-ins actually become flagged for the disabled list when a user ungracefully exits the application (e.g., Word crashing). Then, upon re-launch, functionality delivered by the add-in is no longer available. See further details below.

A reason why an application may be placed on the disabled items list is because it is not “trusted.”

Office 2007: Microsoft Office 2007 introduced the Trust Center. This is where security and privacy settings for the 2007 Microsoft Office system programs reside (Office > Word Options > Trust Center > Add-ins). If your Trust Center settings identify a potentially unsafe add‑in, it will disable the code by default. While this is not the most common cause of disabled items, these settings are certainly a consideration when troubleshooting.

Office 2003: Microsoft Office 2003 handles the security and privacy settings under Tools>Macro>Security. Here, you will find the Macro security settings and a list of Trusted Publishers. If there are values under the Disabled Items sub-key, then there are disabled items on the machine.

Another reason why an application is placed on the disabled items list is due to an accidental selection to disable.

Sometimes Word crashes upon exit (won’t cleanly close). When the user re-starts Word, Word declares the installed add-ins as causing a problem, and asks the user if they want to disable them. If the user hits “Enter” or selects “Yes,” the add-in is then disabled, which is why your custom Toolbars, menu items or Ribbons disappear.  

Ways to re-enable your disabled add-ins & troubleshoot recurring crashes that cause disabled add-ins.

Troubleshooting problems that occur when you start or use Word 2002, 2003 or 2007

Microsoft Support published an article — a compilation of a dozen articles — that includes the following ways to troubleshoot problems that can occur upon launch, use or exit of Microsoft Word 2002, 2003 or 2007. Summarized in this article are:

• Deletion of the Word Data registry key*
• Deletion of the Word Options registry key*
• Renaming the Normal.dot or Normal.dotm global template file
• Disabling the Startup folder add-ins
• Deletion of the COM add-ins registry keys
• Identification of COM add-in programs causing a problem

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/921541 

*Important Note: Beware; serious problems may occur if you modify the registry incorrectly. Therefore, make sure that you follow the steps Microsoft recommends carefully. For added protection, back up the registry before you modify it. Then, you can restore the registry if a problem occurs. For more information about how to back up and restore the registry, refer to the following Microsoft Knowledge base article:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/322756/ 

Run a script

Another way to troubleshoot is to manually delete the Disabled Items key by way of running a script. The one line script to perform this is*:

“reg DELETE HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Office\11.0\Word\Resiliency\DisabledItems /f”.

This can be a part of a batch file or can be run in the Command Prompt.

*Important Note: Beware; serious problems may occur if you modify the registry incorrectly. Therefore, make sure that you follow the steps Microsoft recommends carefully. For added protection, back up the registry before you modify it. Then, you can restore the registry if a problem occurs. For more information about how to back up and restore the registry, refer to the following Microsoft Knowledge base article: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/322756/ 

Use the Interface

In this example, we will show you how to re-enable an add-in should it become disabled. The user can re-enable all of the DLLs Word is blocking through use of Word’s Disabled Items Window. Instructions for both Word 2003 and Word 2007 can be found below.

Navigating & Bringing Back Your Disabled Items in Word 2003

1. Help > About Microsoft Word > Disabled Items (located in the lower right hand corner of the window)
2. Select “Disabled Items” from the dropdown menu, highlight the item you wish to re-enable, and then select Enable.
3. Then close Word completely.
4. Re-launch Word to verify that your disabled items are no longer disabled.Dialog box when you navigate via Help > About Microsoft Word > Disabled Items in Word 2003.

Navigating & Bringing Back Your Disabled Items in Word 2007

1. Office Button >  Word Options > select Add-Ins
2. Near the bottom of the window, you will see the Manage dropdown. Select “Disabled Items” from the dropdown menu, choose the item you wish to re-enable and then select Go.
3. Then close Word completely.
4. Re-launch Word to verify that your disabled items are no longer disabled.

Additional resources to consult regarding Disabled Items:

http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/word/HA100341271033.aspx#2 

http://blogs.msdn.com/andreww/archive/2008/09/30/addinspy.aspx 

http://weblogs.asp.net/joestagner/archive/2008/01/22/fixing-word-2007-crash-on-exit-amp-broken-mouse-support.aspx 

Additional resource to consult regarding launch of DocXtools:

Where O Where is DocXtools?

 

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