Re-enabling a stubborn disabled Outlook add-in
Just to prove that sometimes developers have problems with their own applications too, I’ve just resolved a rather odd, stubborn problem with my own Qlockwork add-in for Outlook 2010 having got stuck in a disabled state.
I had been seeing a slowness in Outlook, so I disabled my addin to see if the problem still occurred (it did, it was a network issue). So I decided to re-enable Qlockwork again by going to File->Options->addins->Manage addins, then rechecking the enabled box against the add-in.
Nothing happened! I tried again. No resolution, the box stayed unchecked. Grrr.
I tried de-installing and reinstalling Qlockwork. No resolution.
I tried another user on the same box (same add-in version). Everything was fine. So it wasn’t the add-in itself causing the issue.
Finally, I found these instructions on how to delete the fact that I’d disabled the add-in manually in the past.
BE CAREFUL! editing the Windows Registry can be dangerous. Don’t delete anything else! If in any doubt get a techie friend or colleague to help.
In summary,
- Start the Windows Registry editor by searching for “regedt32” on your Windows machine and clicking on the regedt32 local application. You’ll need to confirm that you want to run it.
- Using the left hand navigation tree, navigate to Computer\HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\15.0\Outlook\Resiliency\ (replace 15.0 with your actual Outlook version: 15.0 means Outlook 2013, 14.0 means Outlook 2010, 13.0 means Outlook 2007, etc) — remove any keys with type=REG_BINARY found under DisabledItems and CrashingAddinList (Right click each individual key, which will have names like 519DA77, and click delete).
- Then you can also check HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\Outlook\Addins but there was nothing there for me.
- Restart Outlook and voila. Everything working again.
I can only assume this is a “quirk”.
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