Excel - Protected View - SharePoint Online

Question

Hi,

I have a customer with a Modern Desktop based on Azure AD join, Intune and M365 Apps for Enterprise (Monthly Channel). Customer utilises SharePoint Online for files. Any Excel documents opened from SPO open in Protected View. All other Office documents (i.e. Word and PowerPoint) opened from the same SPO site do not open in Protected View. The Protected View message is "Be careful - files from the internet can contain viruses. Unless you need to edit it, it's safe to stay in Protected View". I've got the customer SharePoint Online site successfully configured and reporting as a "Local Intranet" site even, and still no dice. The SharePoint Online URL (https://customer.sharepoint.com) is in Trusted Locations in Office as well. If added as a mapped drive (manually via File Explorer or using "Cloud Drive Mapper") and I have that drive letter in Trusted Locations, I still get it.

Thoughts on what to try? I'm at my wits end. We don't want to get rid of the error by dropping the security level and not prompted for Protected View (for legitimate cases when a users has downloaded from the Internet).

Thanks,

Matt

Answer 1

Hi @Matthew Gailer ,
I suggest you open Excel and go to File- Options- Trust Center- Trust Center settings...- Protected View- uncheck all options:

Just checking in to see if the information was helpful. Please let us know if you would like further assistance.

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Answer 2

Hi @Matthew Gailer

By default, Excel activates certain “protected view” settings. This is meant to prevent you from opening a potentially infected file downloaded from the Internet, sent to you in an Email, etc.

Only disable this setting if you are certain that any file you open is a trusted file. You can disable this setting by following the below steps.

-Click File > Options.
-Click Trust Center > Trust Center Settings > Protected View.
-Make selections that you want.

Protected View Trust Center settings explained
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/topic/what-is-protected-view-d6f09ac7-e6b9-4495-8e43-2bbcdbcb6653

Hope this resolves your Query!!

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Answer 3

Thanks for the replies. I am aware of the concept of dropping the Protected View setting, but noting I did mention "We don't want to get rid of the error by dropping the security level and not prompted for Protected View (for legitimate cases when a users has downloaded from the Internet)". I'd like to explore the option of having my Trusted Locations work.

Answer 4

Hello, you should add the customer's sharepoint to your list of Trusted Sites (Internet Options > Security Tab > Trusted Sites -- Sites). This solved my issue as a workaround for not deactivating protected view entirely.