Changing Office Add Ins to Auto Load

A client has been having issues with Office add-ins for Time Matters not loading when Outlook and Word are started. The add-ins were previously working so Lexis Nexis support tried the first four steps on this list to fix the problem with no luck. I then tried the remaining steps with the same result, the add-in was shown in Outlook but wasn’t loaded or active.

Two of the machines had fresh installs of Windows 7 and Windows 10 so conflicts with old software versions and remnants left in the registry were unlikely. The add-ins worked perfectly when activated manually so it wasn’t a compatibility issue.

I decided to check the registry for load settings and sure enough the add-ins were set to not load automatically. This was after a full uninstall of both Office and Time Matters so it seems like a strange setting for an add-in intended for daily office use.

Thankfully the setting is quick and easy to fix using the following steps.

  1. Open the Registry Editor
  2. Navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER > Software > Microsoft > Office > Word > Addins > (changing Word for the correct Office application)
  3. Open the add-in with the problem
  4. Double click to open the LoadBehavior item
  5. Change the binary value to 3
  6. Close the registry editor and test the Office applications.