Saving and Opening Trustworthy Macros

Owned by Manjak, Martin
Last updated: Oct 14, 2022 by Lyons, Andrew H
3 min read

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Some offices may depend on macro-enabled files from trustworthy sources. This page describes the workaround for saving those files and allowing their macros to run, since macro-enabled documents are prevented from using their macros on University-managed PCs.

Protection from Malicious Macros

Emotet, a prevalent and pernicious form of malware encountered by University employees, is dependent on macros embedded in Microsoft Office documents ( e.g. Word, Excel, PowerPoint). To protect against this particular threat, the Information Security team prevents macros from running when encountered in an MS Office file that originates from outside the University's domain, i.e., as an email attachment or link to an exterior site.

Instructions

Received from email

  1. Right click on the attached file and select the Save As option. The example screen shot uses a Word document, but this works for Excel and PowerPoint files as well.




  2. Select the location where you want to save the file. This could be your local drive, a shared folder, or a OneDrive folder. Click Save to complete this process




  3. After Saving the file, you should see it in the location you selected




  4. Right click on the file and click on Properties at the bottom of the menu



  5. At the bottom of the Properties window check the Unblock check box and click OK



  6. To access the file and its macros, right click and select the Open option. The file will open in the associated applications (Word, Excel, PowerPoint) at which point you will be prompted to Allow Editing and Allow Content (the specific command used to run any embedded macros)

 

On a network drive

  1. Open the Microsoft Office application you need to use (e.g. Excel)

  2. Go to File > Options > Trusted Center Trusted Settings



  3. Go to Trusted Locations

  4. Check the option to Allow Trusted locations on my network (not recommended)

  5. Click OK

  6. Click Add new location

  7. Click Browse... and navigate to the network folder you wish to add




  8. Click OK

  9. If desired, check the box for Subfolders of this location are also trusted

  10. Click OK

  11. Click OK

  12. Click OK

  13. This should allow macro-enabled files in this location to open

 

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