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Password Problem Fixer

Works in Excel 97, 2000, 2002, XP, 2003, and 2007
for users of Google desktop search and Excel

If you have installed the Google desktop search software and you are using Excel it is highly likely that you will get a request for an add-in for Microsoft Excel password when you close Excel.  And if you do not know the password (which is also highly likely) clicking cancel does not close the dialog.  Nor does clicking on the X to close the dialog.  It just keeps coming back and back and back.

Some users have been able to close the password request dialog after clicking cancel many many times.  If this does not work users have to kill Excel via Alt-Ctl-Delete or even power their PC off and on.  None of these are acceptable solutions.

The problem does not affect all users.  It does not happen all the time. It is fairly rare (and one must have Google desktop search installed)   But to those it happens to it is down right annoying.  It happens if the add-in file is protected and especially if the add-in file is opened by another add-in.

Google is aware of the problem.  And we (and I suspect others) have told them of the solution.   As of Jan 4th 2004 they have not fixed.  The response we have gotten from then is that they "may fix it in a future release".  Nice to know.  They did offer us a free t-shirt.  We refused it.

Our recommendation is to un-install the Google desktop search.  If you don't need it get rid of it.  If you do need a desktop search program, get one that works with Excel.

Another alternative (other than living with the problem) is to modify the following registry key to a value of 2 (its default value is 3):

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\Excel\Addins\
            Office.Desktop.Google.com\LoadBehavior

In our testing, the above change eliminates the password prompt without any problem.  Our thanks to Jeff Smith who found this solution and to John Walkenbach for posting it. 

If you are not comfortable or do not know how to modify the registry manually then you can download and run the following program that does the modification for you.

Download password prompt fixer

Only run the password prompt fixer after you have installed Google's desktop search.  If you run before then the Google installation will overwrite the modification the password prompt fixer makes. If you do not have Google's desktop search installed the password prompt fixer will not benefit you.

As info, we tried the Google desktop search settings to tell Google desktop search not to search specific Excel files and directories and to not search any Excel files. The problem still happened. One wonders if these settings truly have any meaning.... We have also heard that the Google desktop search indexes information from password protected workbooks which means that it can be accessed without a password via the desktop search results. We don't believe this problem has been solved either.