Fix: Cannot Change the Connected State of Registered Office Add-Ins

When you attempt to enable or disable an Office Add-In, the following error message may be displayed and the Add-In state does not change.

The connected state of Office Add-Ins registered in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE cannot be changed.

This happens if the Office application you’re using is running under standard privileges, and hence cannot modify the Add-In startup state in the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE registry hive.

Windows Vista

To resolve the problem, start the Office application elevated. To do so, right-click on the Office application shortcut and choose Run as Administrator. Then open the Add-Ins dialog to enable or disable the registered Office Add-In.

Windows XP

Logon to an administrator account and then launch the Office application. Once the Add-In is enabled/disabled, logoff from the administrator account and proceed to your user account.

Using the Registry Editor

Alternately, you can change the Add-In startup state manually via the registry, by navigating to the Add-In registry location and modifying the LoadBehavior DWORD value manually.

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \ SOFTWARE \ Microsoft \ Office \ Word \ Addins

Similarly, for Microsoft Excel:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \ SOFTWARE \ Microsoft \ Office \ Excel \ Addins

To disable the Add-In, set the value data for LoadBehavior to 2.

Third-Party Tools

[OfficeIns from Nirsoft.net] OfficeIns (Office Add-ins Manager) is a small utility that displays the details of all installed Microsoft Office (Word, Excel, Outlook, and so on…) add-ins on your computer, and allows you to disable / enable them.

[Topalt EnableDisable] Topalt EnableDisable is simple and easy to use tool for enabling and disabling add-ins for Office. Disabling add-ins might be useful if your Office programs are running slow with the add-ins installed, you can disable them when you are not using them and enable when using.

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