where does outlook store what attachments are safe to open?

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Outlook evidently has a setting somewhere that controls whether an email attachment of a given file type can be directly opened, or whether the user must go through the "You should only open attachments from a trustworthy source" dialog. One of the options in this dialog is "Always ask before opening this type of file".

To un-check the "always ask" setting, you have to close outlook, re-open as an administrator, then attempt to open every file type that you want to change this setting for, then unset the "always ask"... then close outlook and re-open as a normal user. I'm trying to find a way to automate this process, but I can't seem to figure out where this setting is stored. I would assume it's buried somewhere in the registry, but then again outlook also has a habit of storing plenty of stuff (cough autocomplete list cough) in random database files.

Does anyone know where/how outlook stores the "safety state" of attachment file types?

ljwobker

Posted 2017-09-30T20:03:57.427

Reputation: 256

How about, Outlook -> File -> Options-> Privacy centre... (can't remember the exact name) but its where all security settings are. – LPChip – 2017-09-30T20:19:51.720

I think you mean "Trust Center" - which doesn't appear to have this setting. And I'm really looking for something programmatic. Everytime someone pushes an update it wipes out all my settings (this may be a corporate policy thing) but I want something I can script or dump into a .reg file so that I can return all these attachment settings to "open without asking" in one fell swipe. ;-) – ljwobker – 2017-09-30T20:24:40.560

Answers

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Technically speaking this prompt happens in Outlook after the: "Enable Protected View for Outlook Attachments" under Trust Center (from Excel or Word) is unchecked. Keep in mind that Outlook Trust Center doesn't show this option to disable/enable protected view settings, you will have to go to the Office Suite program in question. If you enable this setting you won't get the prompt back, however the protected view settings alert when you open Excel/Word will now appear. I end-up doing a fix provided on MS forum by Roady: Right Click on Outlook shortcut and running it as an Administrator and then did a Ctrl + Shift while opening the attachment, this will allow you to uncheck the box for "Always ask before opening this type of file".

Blockquote https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/msoffice/forum/msoffice_outlook-mso_win10/how-to-disable-the-warning-on-opening-any/b424facc-3855-4467-8225-cb0c9de44c11

Yannick

Posted 2017-09-30T20:03:57.427

Reputation: 1

Yep - that part I can make work, but it requires me to manually open one of each attachment type that I want to trust. I'm specifically asking about a way to do this programmatically, either via a PowerShell script or a set of registry entries or similar... – ljwobker – 2019-01-18T16:15:23.947

Asked: 2017-09-30T20:03:57.427

Viewed: 556 times

Active: 2019-01-17T15:54:47.007