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How to Remove/Disable Protected View / Enable Editing (Office 365)
What the hell is Protected View and how can I get rid of it?
Have you wondered like 100 million other users what the heck this is?
It’s a grotesque and useless thing called “Protected View”. And until today, nobody knows why Microsoft has introduced this nonsense.
Basically, when you open documents, an ugly yellow dialog box pops up on the top of your Excel or Word document telling you to “Enable Editing” of your document, if you want to be able to edit it. Of course it makes absolutely no sense to ask such a question. Of course I want to edit it you morons. Why would I open it, then?
Anyways, now that is out of the way, let’s see how we can disable this crap.
Microsoft doesn’t make it easy to find it, so you have to go through a couple of steps:
Go to your menu “File”
Click “Options”
Click “Trust Center”
Click “Trust Center Settings…”
Click “Protected View”
Disable all check boxes
If you hate Microsoft as much as I do, please leave your insults below in the comment section.
Thank you.
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27 comments for “How to Remove/Disable Protected View / Enable Editing (Office 365)”
Angry Employee,
October 27, 2022 at 9:15 am
Every excel file generated by the software I use at work opens in protected view, with all of these boxes unticked. I have to open at least 40 of these each day on a garbage computer that takes about 5 seconds for each of the two clicks to get through. 10 seconds 40 times a day is 2000 seconds (33.333333 minutes) a week. That’s two hours of employee time a month. Granted, this is partially because of the crap computer, but this is an entirely avoidable additional time waste. I’M GENERATING THIS FILE, WHY WOULD I NEED TO BE PROTECTED FROM IT?
I have a feeling that someone is paying people at MS and other tech companies to write the new applications in a way, as to make us hate technology. Something that was useful years ago is now increasingly difficult and annoying to work with.
Yes, I do hate MS!!!
I have spent 5 hours trying to find a way to open this document, a 50 page play that I haven’t opened in 15 years. First I had to buy MS Word 365 because I am using Open Office, but I could n’t open the file. This really pissed me off because it felt like a Mafia shakedown , or a terrorist hostage taking, or kidnapping holding my child for ransom I can barely afford to pay! And I need the sleep so bad, but here it’s nearly 9am, and I haven’t gotten my document open. And I have finally found a songwriter Producer who might know just how to help me get my play produced! But the angel of a songwriter is leaving the country and lives out of state. But traveling during Covid is a perfect time to read a play from an unknown writer…but I might miss this once in a lifetime opportunity to put pages in his hand because this jerk’s captured my intellectual property without my asking and is “protecting” it for me… I do so hate this wretched game of keep away software MS is the only one still playing. Open Source and Block Chain are waiting in the wings to make MS Obsolete… and will leave room for someone to create a software to set free from MS Word Bondage, all our precious work, locked in another dimension of the world where everyone is meaner and inconsiderate.
I am so frustrated. And I am highly strung and analog to the bone!
God bless you good sir/madam at digitalwelt.org for this insight… I needed to say it.
Cheers Ears
Hated opening a word document and scrolling to the place to type and then having the yellow bar remind me I couldn’t edit, then have to disable and find the place again…
Yes, it’s only a couple of clicks but they add up and suck your life away.
The friggin program opens my excel spreadsheet in protected mode. When I go to the settings as shown in the instructions above, NONE OF THE FRIGGIN BOXES ARE EVEN CHECKED.
So glad to see that more people agree that Microsoft is a literal cancerous virus on software and technology. what a f**king stupid feature. I can’t fathom the stupidity of a brain capable of deriving such a moronic feature in Microsoft products. This company has become a plague.
I don’t have the expertise or computer savvy to know exactly what is worthless or useful as far as Microsoft programming goes, but it’s a joy to be able to disable this feature, and I appreciate all this good ire! Thanks gang!
Unlike the author and other comments, I side with Microsoft on this. Sure, it isn’t convenient, but security and convenience are often conflicting. The author did not bother to read the Microsoft page on why they even have this feature. These features are meant to protect the careless or uninformed user, that’s why the default is feature turned ON. More informed users don;t need it, and that’s why there’s a setting to turn it OFF. Get over your silly frustration, people.
Microsoft help page on Protected View:
support.office.com/en-us/article/what-is-protected-view-d6f09ac7-e6b9-4495-8e43-2bbcdbcb6653
5.0 
4.9 
3.0 
Every excel file generated by the software I use at work opens in protected view, with all of these boxes unticked. I have to open at least 40 of these each day on a garbage computer that takes about 5 seconds for each of the two clicks to get through. 10 seconds 40 times a day is 2000 seconds (33.333333 minutes) a week. That’s two hours of employee time a month. Granted, this is partially because of the crap computer, but this is an entirely avoidable additional time waste. I’M GENERATING THIS FILE, WHY WOULD I NEED TO BE PROTECTED FROM IT?
Thank yooouuu
I have a feeling that someone is paying people at MS and other tech companies to write the new applications in a way, as to make us hate technology. Something that was useful years ago is now increasingly difficult and annoying to work with.
Yes, I do hate MS!!!
Thank you for your instructions. Very Helpful.
I have spent 5 hours trying to find a way to open this document, a 50 page play that I haven’t opened in 15 years. First I had to buy MS Word 365 because I am using Open Office, but I could n’t open the file. This really pissed me off because it felt like a Mafia shakedown , or a terrorist hostage taking, or kidnapping holding my child for ransom I can barely afford to pay! And I need the sleep so bad, but here it’s nearly 9am, and I haven’t gotten my document open. And I have finally found a songwriter Producer who might know just how to help me get my play produced! But the angel of a songwriter is leaving the country and lives out of state. But traveling during Covid is a perfect time to read a play from an unknown writer…but I might miss this once in a lifetime opportunity to put pages in his hand because this jerk’s captured my intellectual property without my asking and is “protecting” it for me… I do so hate this wretched game of keep away software MS is the only one still playing. Open Source and Block Chain are waiting in the wings to make MS Obsolete… and will leave room for someone to create a software to set free from MS Word Bondage, all our precious work, locked in another dimension of the world where everyone is meaner and inconsiderate.
I am so frustrated. And I am highly strung and analog to the bone!
God bless you good sir/madam at digitalwelt.org for this insight… I needed to say it.
Cheers Ears
Hated opening a word document and scrolling to the place to type and then having the yellow bar remind me I couldn’t edit, then have to disable and find the place again…
Yes, it’s only a couple of clicks but they add up and suck your life away.
I want to know how to turn off ‘protected view’ for a document I’ve already looked at and decided is safe. How do I do that please?
thank you
this is so annoying
Thank you for calling out this idiocy.
me too I hate Microsoft, you can’t measure it
Thank you for this information. MICROSOFT: There should be an option for admins to delete this crap when installing Office 365.
Thx
Microsoft is a crap-o-la company, with their idiotic ideas, they should try to make things easier instead of harder.
Thank you!
You sir are a godsend, every damn file accessed through our vpn needed this
The friggin program opens my excel spreadsheet in protected mode. When I go to the settings as shown in the instructions above, NONE OF THE FRIGGIN BOXES ARE EVEN CHECKED.
I hate it too. I used to like Word Perfect
So glad to see that more people agree that Microsoft is a literal cancerous virus on software and technology. what a f**king stupid feature. I can’t fathom the stupidity of a brain capable of deriving such a moronic feature in Microsoft products. This company has become a plague.
Hey, Microsoft! P*SS THE F*CK OFF OF MY COMPUTER ALREADY.
I don’t have the expertise or computer savvy to know exactly what is worthless or useful as far as Microsoft programming goes, but it’s a joy to be able to disable this feature, and I appreciate all this good ire! Thanks gang!
Unlike the author and other comments, I side with Microsoft on this. Sure, it isn’t convenient, but security and convenience are often conflicting. The author did not bother to read the Microsoft page on why they even have this feature. These features are meant to protect the careless or uninformed user, that’s why the default is feature turned ON. More informed users don;t need it, and that’s why there’s a setting to turn it OFF. Get over your silly frustration, people.
Microsoft help page on Protected View:
support.office.com/en-us/article/what-is-protected-view-d6f09ac7-e6b9-4495-8e43-2bbcdbcb6653