Changing the Load Behavior of the ndOffice Add-ins

In some cases, our Office add-ins may be disabled in Word, Excel, or Outlook. First, see this article on how to activate the inactive add-ins or enable the disabled add-ins: https://support.netdocuments.com/hc/en-us/articles/205218540-Enabling-NetDocuments-Integrations-in-Office

For Outlook Users

When using ndOffice in Outlook, users can force the add-in to be always enabled. 

On the File tab, click Slow and Disabled COM Add-ins.

You'll see a list of add-ins. Click Always enable this add-in. 

Changing the Load Behavior

If you have tried the solution referenced above and the add-ins are still not loading when the application is opened, then it may be due to a registry setting. This registry setting determines how the add-in is loaded in the application. This article describes how to adjust this registry setting. 

Under Add-ins in Word (or Excel) you will see the current load behavior of the particular add-in. The load behavior of the add-in should be set to "Load at Startup." 

If the load behavior is "Unloaded" then follow these steps:

Open your registry editor. To do this, open your Windows Start menu and type "regedit". Go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER > Software > Microsoft > Office > Word > Addins > NetDocuments.Client.WordAddIn. Note what the LoadBehavior is set to. It will be a number like 0 or 1 or 3. 

Here are the full registry paths for each Office application:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office\Word\Addins\NetDocuments.Client.WordAddIn  

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office\Excel\Addins\NetDocuments.Client.ExcelAddIn

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office\Outlook\Addins\NetDocuments.Client.OutlookAddIn

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office\PowerPoint\Addins\NetDocuments.Client.PowerPointAddIn

If the LoadBehavior is anything other than "3" then follow these steps:

1) Close Word (or Excel or Outlook). Make sure the "winword.exe" process is not running in the Windows Task Manager. 

2) Open the registry editor again. Double-click the registry key to edit it.

3) Change the Load Behavior to "3." Close the registry editor.

4) Re-open the registry editor to ensure "3" is still there.

5) Open Word. The add-in should now load automatically at startup.  

See this MSDN article or more information about the LoadBehavior values: https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb386106.aspx#LoadBehavior 

Add-in Resiliency

If changing the LoadBehavior key still does not resolve it, there is another registry key you can adjust: 

Microsoft keeps track of problem add-ins in the registry via the Resiliency key. If Office thinks an add-in has an issue it will ask the user if they want to disable the add-in. If the user clicks Yes then it will be added to the DisabledItems key (see screenshot below).

Once an add-in has been placed in the DisabledItems key, Office will not let the add-in load by default. To get it to load, you must go to File > Options > Add-ins > Disabled Items > Go and then enable it there. Then close Outlook and continue with the registry settings below.

To solve this issue, NetDocuments.Client.OutlookAddin (or whatever add-in you're using) must be added to the DoNotDisableAddinList with a DWORD value of 1 as shown in the screenshot. 

The end path will vary slightly based on the version of Office and application. Below is an example of the location a Resiliency key for Word using Office 2016.   

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office\16.0\Word\Resiliency