Is there a way to stop Outlook from disabiling VBA and other addins?

Question

Is there any way to stop Outlook from disabling VBA?

Over the years I've developed various VBA routines that process emails as they arrive. My, often unattended, office PC is rigged to re-open Outlook when it reboots so this VBA can continue running 24/7 as it's an important part of our business processes. Most recently I am finding that when Microsoft applies an update overnight and Outlook reopens the VBA is being disabled by Outlook itself. The message is "ADD-IN ALERT Outlook disabled the add-in 'Microsoft VBA for Outlook Add-in. It caused Outlook to run slowly". I also find that my Bitdefender anti-spam is being disabled too, and after disabling the addin Outlook continues importing emails, leaving me unprotected.

I tried contacting MS, since it is a MS upgrade that triggers the reboot, and a MS product (Outlook) that is deactivating another MS product (VBA Add-in) but their answer was "to offer your proper support, we recommend to post your question to Microsoft Q & A community site".

Oh, and I don't think the Office PC is the problem since it's running an i7 processor and the same thing is happening on my new EVO i7 laptop.

Can anyone help me find a way to prevent MS from disabling itself?

Answer 1

Hi @Rob Prineppi ，

Based on my test and research, please try to follow the best practice and the registry methods mentioned in the following document and see if it can help prevent your add-in from been disabled:
Support for keeping add-ins enabled

Below are the basic steps for your reference:
(Important: Follow the steps in this section carefully. Serious problems might occur if you modify the registry incorrectly. Before you modify it, back up the registry for restoration in case problems occur.)

1. Launch Registry Editor(regedit), obtain the ProgID for the add-in you would like to configure via the registry path below:
   HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office\Outlook\Addins
   or HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office\Outlook\Addins
2. Assuming you are running Outlook 2016, Outlook 2019 or Outlook for Microsoft 365, create the registry key using settings below:
   Key: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Office\16.0\Outlook\Resiliency\AddinList
   String: <ProgID of the add-in obtained in Step1>
   Value: 1
   
3. Add the ProgID of the add-in into the following registry entry and set the value to 1：
   Key: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\x.0\Outlook\Resiliency\DoNotDisableAddinList
   Dword: <ProgID of the add-in obtained in Step1>
   Value: 1

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