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Excel 2010 Enable Macros in Workbooks Outside Trusted Locations

 

For all macros not stored in a trusted location, Excel relies on the macro settings. The Low, Medium, High, and Very High settings that were familiar in Excel 2003 have been renamed.

To access the macro settings, click Macro Security in the Developer tab to prompt the Macro Settings category of the Trust Center dialog. Select the second option, Disable All Macros with Notification.

 

Description of each option:

• Disable All Macros Without Notification
  This setting prevents all macros from running. This setting is for people who never intend to run macros. This setting is roughly equivalent to the old Very High Security setting in Excel 2003. With this setting, only macros in the Trusted Locations folders can run.

• Disable All Macros with Notification
  This setting is similar to Medium security in Excel 2003 and is the recommended setting. In Excel 2003, a Medium setting caused a box to be displayed when you opened a file containing macros. This box forced you to choose either Enable or Disable. Many novice Excel users randomly choose from this box. In Excel 2010, the message is displayed in the Message Area that macros have been disabled. You can choose to enable the content by clicking that option.

• Disable All Macros Except Digitally Signed Macros
  This setting requires you to obtain a digital signing tool from VeriSign or another provider. This might be appropriate if you are going to be selling add-ins to others, but if you just want to write macros for your own use then it might be a hassle.

• Enable All Macros (Not Recommended: Potentially Dangerous Code Can Run)
  This setting is similar to Low macro security in Excel 2003. It requires the least amount of hassle, but it leaves your computer vulnerable to attacks from malicious viruses. Microsoft suggests that you do not use this setting.

 

It is recommended that you set your macro settings to Disable All Content with Notification. If you use this setting and open a workbook that contains macros, you will see a Security Warning in the area above the formula bar. Assuming you were expecting macros in this workbook, click Enable Content. If you do not want to enable macros for the current workbook, dismiss the Security Warning by clicking the X at the far right of the message bar. If you forget to enable the macros and try to run a macro, Excel indicates that you cannot run the macro because all macros have been disabled. In this case, close the workbook and reopen it to access the message bar again.