Small Business

Office Tip: Don't Get Slowed Down with Paranoid Security Warnings

By Dave Johnson

Updated on: May 2, 2011 / 12:57 AM EDT / MoneyWatch

For all of the various improvements in Office 2010, one new feature has driven me to the very brink of insanity: Protected View. This is a feature designed to protect you from malware that might be hiding in documents you download from the Internet. The cost of this protection? All the files originating somewhere other than your own PC are locked from editing and even printing until you click to turn off Protected View for that particular file.

I've been using Office 2010 for a year now, and -- maybe I'm just a slow learner -- but I am still surprised and slightly confused every single time I open Word doc I received as an attachment in e-mail and I can't print it. It takes me a few seconds to realize the file opened in Protected View. I silently (or audibly) curse, click, and then continue with what I was trying to do.

Well, good news: It's easy to permanently disable Protected View for e-mail attachments, so you never have to be annoyed by this frustration again. Just do this:

Click the File tab and then click Options.
Click Trust Center.
In the Microsoft Trust Center section, click Trust Center Settings.
Finally, in the Protected View section, clear the checkbox for Enable Protected View for Outlook Attachments.

You could also turn off Protected View for documents originating on the Internet, but that might be a reasonable precaution; it's up to you. Since the vast majority of e-mail attachments are work related and from people you know, though, Protected View for attachments is little more than a frustrating extra step for every single document you receive. [via How-To Geek]

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