1

Hello,

I have an add-in for Outlook 2016 that I use. This add-in occasionally causes Outlook to startup slowly and Outlook disables it. I want to make it so that this add-in is always enabled regardless of how it affects Outlook. Just to be clear this add-in is being set as disabled, not inactive. Once I manually re-enable the add-in it works as intended until Outlook is restart.

I have encountered this before with different add-ins but I can usually click File > Manage COM Add-ins then select “Always enable this add-in” and that fixes the problem. For this particular add-in Outlook doesn’t offer the option to “Always enable” it, just to “Enable” it.

Upon researching this issue I have found that I need to modify a registry located at “HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\16.0\Outlook\Resiliency”, but it doesn’t exist.

I have found a bunch of articles and forums of people giving directions on how to manage this with GPO but this is not a desired fix for me as it is happening with one single add-in on one single computer.

I simply need to have Outlook leave this add-in enabled. Does anybody have any thoughts?

6 Spice ups
2

This may go without saying, but have you tried managing add-ins under the Options tab on the home tab of Outlook?

3

Do you mean File > Options > Add-ins. If so then yes.

4

You could run a script on the user login that simply updates the registry before Outlook is launched:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\Outlook\Addins(name_of_the_addin)

Set the LoadBehavior value to 2.

This would re-enable the add-in whenever the user logs in.

Also,

You will still get the warning from Outlook wanting to disable the add-in if performance is affected and if you don’t adjust the resiliency settings. Under 2016, Outlook should pop up something that says “These add-ins dereased performance or caused outlook to crash” along with the number of seconds and a button that says “Always enable this add-in” that you can click.

Clicking this should cause the following registry keys to be created, so I would look at the following registry key if you can find it.

If you cannot find it, try creating it manually as follows:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\16.0\Outlook\Resiliency\DoNotDisableAddinList

For 32-bit Outlook, create MyAddIn.Connect key (substitute the name of the add in from the key above).

For 64-bit, create Add-On-Products.MyAddIn

Set the value to 1.

Good luck

Jerry

1 Spice up
5

Why would I need to create a script to be run every startup. Does this value not remain the same after you manually modify it?

@jerryray

6

The script would be necessary in case Outlook disables the add-in again. The registry value would get changed by Outlook to disable the addin.

Jerry

7

The below worked.

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\16.0\Outlook\Resiliency\DoNotDisableAddinList

For 32-bit Outlook, create MyAddIn.Connect key (substitute the name of the add in from the key above).

Set the value to 1.

Modifying the key at HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\Outlook\Addins(name_of_the_addin) to 2 from 3 seems to make the add-in inactive.

8

Hi,

I am facing the similar but a bit different problem. I am using Outlook 2016 and a custom Add-in. I set the LoadBehavior value to 3 and it works fine, add-in opens properly. But every time on restarting the Outlook, LoadBehavior value automatically becomes 2. And add-in gets disabled.

Could you please suggest?

9

Just to mention one observation.

At Startup event when we are creating outlook object following exception occures.

Retrieving the COM class factory for component with CLSID {0006F03A-0000-0000-C000-000000000046} failed due to the following error:

8000ffff catastrophic failure (Exception from HRESULT : 0x8000FFFF (E_UNEXPECTED)

10

Hi zeeshanather,

Since its been almost a year since I worked on this issue I don’t quite remember what the specifics were. Looks like I tried setting the value to 1 which solved it for me.

If that doesn’t work I would suggest creating a new thread for this or posting the question on either Microsoft’s support page or StackExchange.

11

Notes:

Use the Registry Editor on the client computer where the add-in is installed, in order to obtain the ProgID for an add-in: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office\Outlook\Addins or HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office\Outlook\Addins If you disable or do not enable this policy setting, the list of managed add-ins will be deleted. If the “Block all unmanaged add-ins” policy setting is enabled, then all add-ins are blocked. Add-ins that are disabled by this policy will never be disabled by the Outlook add-in disabling feature, which disables add-ins for performance, resiliency, or reliability reasons. If the user chooses “Always enable this add-in”, the registry is updated to include details about the add-in that is to be exempted from the automatic disabling feature.

Name

Description

Key

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\x.0\Outlook\Resiliency\DoNotDisableAddinList

DWORD

ProgID of the add-in

Values

Hex value between 1 and A indicating the reason the add-in was originally disabled:

0x00000001 Boot load (LoadBehavior = 3)

0x00000002 Demand load (LoadBehavior = 9)

0x00000003 Crash

0x00000004 Handling FolderSwitch event

0x00000005 Handling BeforeFolderSwitch event

0x00000006 Item Open

0x00000007 Iteration Count

0x00000008 Shutdown

0x00000009 Crash, but not disabled because add-in is in the allow list

0x0000000A Crash, but not disabled because user selected no in disable dialog

Note: The x.0 placeholder represents the version of Office (16.0 = Office 2016, 15.0 = Office 2013).

Note: If you re-enable an add-in that caused a performance problem at one time, users may experience performance problems in the future in the Office program for which the add-in is loaded.

To block add-ins that are not managed by this policy setting, you must also configure the “Block all unmanaged add-ins” policy setting.

From < Support for keeping add-ins enabled | Microsoft Learn> ;

also see < https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/emeamsgdev/2017/08/02/outlooks-slow-add-ins-resiliency-logic-and-how-to-always-enable-slow-add-ins/> ;

It has some additional steps to keep it from getting checked for disablement

12

The first link is no longer valid. I think this is the same document:

13

LoadBehavior should be set to 3 for normal load behaviour.