How to disable a COM add-in

[Jerry]

I'm running Office 2003 on XP Pro. I set Word to prompt for saving changes
to Normal.dot, for security reasons.
Each time I exit Word, the message pops up: "Changes have been made that
affect the global template, Normal.dot. Do you want to save those changes?"

My investigation revealed that the culprit was a COM add-in installed by a
bluetooth
dongle software, so that a "Send to Bluetooth" option got added to the File
menu.
This was not easily visible through any of the standard methods (e.g. adding
a "COM Add-In" button to the menu bar).

After a lot of fumbling, I discovered the way to get rid of the annoyance:

Delete the following registry key:
HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office\Word\Addins\<name of the add-in>

Of course, you lose the functionality of the add-in.

Anyone knows if it might be possible to prevent the offender from
changing the Normal.dot in the first place, and continue enjoying its
services?

 

[Pete Bennett]

You could always try writing an AutoExec macro that contains the line.

NormalTemplate.Saved = True

And see if that resolves the issue. I forget whether COM Addins load after
VBA automacros run or not, so you'll need to experiment a bit.

Alternatively, have you tried letting Word save the changes to Normal and
see if you get the same message when you start up again?

 

[Jerry]

Hi,

Thanks for your reply. Letting the Word save the Normal.dot didn't help.
I'll test the other one.

| You could always try writing an AutoExec macro that contains the line.
|
| NormalTemplate.Saved = True
|
| And see if that resolves the issue. I forget whether COM Addins load
after
| VBA automacros run or not, so you'll need to experiment a bit.
|
| Alternatively, have you tried letting Word save the changes to Normal and
| see if you get the same message when you start up again?
|
| "Jerry" wrote:
|
| > I'm running Office 2003 on XP Pro. I set Word to prompt for saving
changes
| > to Normal.dot, for security reasons.
| > Each time I exit Word, the message pops up: "Changes have been made that
| > affect the global template, Normal.dot. Do you want to save those
changes?"
| >
| > My investigation revealed that the culprit was a COM add-in installed by
a
| > bluetooth
| > dongle software, so that a "Send to Bluetooth" option got added to the
File
| > menu.
| > This was not easily visible through any of the standard methods (e.g.
adding
| > a "COM Add-In" button to the menu bar).
| >
| > After a lot of fumbling, I discovered the way to get rid of the
annoyance:
| >
| > Delete the following registry key:
| > HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office\Word\Addins\<name of the add-in>
| >
| > Of course, you lose the functionality of the add-in.
| >
| > Anyone knows if it might be possible to prevent the offender from
| > changing the Normal.dot in the first place, and continue enjoying its
| > services?
| >
| >
| >