How do I disable "Microsoft Word Security Notice" pop-up

Anonymous
2021-07-07T17:12:32+00:00

I am extremely frustrated, to the point that I want to just switch over to Apple products the way everyone tells me to.

For no reason - (at least nothing I did), Microsoft appears to have installed some type of software on my computer that whenever I copy and paste into a MS Word document, I get an annoying pop-up:

Microsoft Word Security Notice

Microsoft Office has identified a potential security concern.

This document contains fields that can share data with external files and websites. It is important that this file is from a trustworthy source.

Choosing Yes will enable updating all fields in this file until you close it.

And I say --- duh! This is what I was trying to do. But why do I have to be annoyed each and every time I do anything with MS Word products??? Oh.. I'm using Windows 10 Professional and a Microsoft 365 account through my school

How can I fix it? Or should I just throw this Dell Latitude Laptop out the window and start over with an iBook?

Arrrrrgh.

****@*****.***.edu

Microsoft 365 and Office | Word | For home | Windows

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Jay Freedman 208.2K Reputation points Volunteer Moderator
2021-07-08T15:04:48+00:00

I'm not sure if this is a bug or a security feature which was enabled after the last update. Is there a way to disable this warning when doing mail merges?

It is a bug in the last update, and it is what Microsoft's team is working to resolve. When the fix is released, the security notice should not pop up when it isn't appropriate, i.e., during a merge or after pasting a benign object from another location. Until that fix arrives, though, the rollback that you did is the only way to avoid the notices.

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Anonymous
2021-07-16T06:16:21+00:00

I just updated my MS Office and this problem has been solved.

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  1. Anonymous
    2021-07-14T10:41:08+00:00

    Hi Laura,

    I rolled back the Office update to the previous version at the time which was Version 2105 (Build 14026.20308) released on June 18th.

    To do this I used ODT and OfficeC2RClient.exe (should be available if you installed office with Office Click to Run).
    ODT download: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=49117

    Summary:

    1. Downgrade office with OfficeC2RClient.exe
    2. Disable automatic Office updates with ODT

    Both can be run in a batch file or just from command prompt, depends on your setup. It needs to be run with admin privs so from elevated CMD, etc.

    Step 1. - Downgrade office. From elevated CMD prompt run the below command (copy & paste):

    "C:\Program Files\Common Files\microsoft shared\ClickToRun\OfficeC2RClient.exe" /update user forceappshutdown=true updatetoversion=16.0.14026.20308

    Step 2. - Disable automatic updates with ODT tool and XML configuration file:

    XML file contents (place this file in the same directory as ODT setup.exe file)

    <Configuration>
    <Updates Enabled="FALSE" Channel="Current" />
    <Display Level="None" AcceptEULA="TRUE" />
    </Configuration>

    Command to run from elevated CMD prompt:

    setup.exe /configure name_of_xml_file_here.xml

    When this bug is fixed don't forget to re-enable office updates if this is what you have set up in your environment now.

    You can do this with ODT using a file similar to above, except change Updates Enabled="FALSE" to Updates Enabled="TRUE".

    The command would be the same as above:

    setup.exe /configure name_of_changed_xml_file_here.xml

    I hope this helps. Step 1. is configured to show a prompt with the update status to the user, it can be done silently as well but I forgot the switch for it. I think it was displaylevel=none but you'd need to double check this. It is also set to force shutdown on any open Office applications when downgrading.

    Cheers

    Tom

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  2. Anonymous
    2021-07-14T12:38:22+00:00

    Many thanks for the useful information, Tom.

    Laura

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  3. Anonymous
    2021-07-15T00:56:41+00:00

    Hi All:

    Sorry but I haven't yet had a chance to read all the postings, which I plan to do later, as I just did a quick medical sojourn, so this may have been already posted.. But the quickest & easiest work around that I've found is to use the "Word" paste short-cut of "Ctrl-V" which brings up the "MS Security Warning", enter "Yes", & you should then be able to access the "Paste" option as you did previously.

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