How to disable add-ins

To remove an add-in, first check with the developer to see if there's an uninstall routine or other procedure they recommend. PPTools, for example, includes its own uninstaller in Settings, Control Panel, Add/Remove Programs.

If there are no specific removal instructions from the developer, choose Tools, Add-Ins from the main menu bar. In the Add-Ins dialog, click the add-in you want to remove to highlight it, then click Remove.

This should remove the add-in from at least the current PowerPoint session, but in some cases, the add-in may re-load itself in the future.

If you still find that it loads, or if the add-in prevents PowerPoint from opening (so you can't use PowerPoint's Add-Ins dialog box) keep reading. Be sure that you've quit PowerPoint before doing any of the following.

If you know the name of the file that contains the add-in, you can rename it to prevent it from loading again. Add-ins for PowerPoint are in .PPA files. You can use Explorer to search your hard drive for all files of type: *.PPA

Don't just delete them all, though. Some versions of PowerPoint use PPAs supplied by Microsoft to provide extra features like the Save As HTML feature in PowerPoint 97. Before deleting any PPA file, be certain you know what it is.

It can help to look at the Windows registry when trying to determine this. If you're not comfortable with editing the registry, stop now, don't read this. If you don't know how to start Regedit, you probably don't want to try this.

Also: ALWAYS back up the registry before making any changes.

Start Regedit and go to:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\x.0\PowerPoint\AddIns\

Where x.0 represents your Office version (Office 97 = 8.0, Office 2000 = 9.0 and so on)

Any add-ins listed here will automatically load when PowerPoint starts up. Look for the one you're after and click its name. In the right pane, you'll see several entries, one of which is Path, which shows you where the add-in's PPA file is. Rename the PPA file to something else ( we usually just change the extension from .PPA to .PPB ... B for Backup)

Renaming the PPA will keep it from loading but will allow you to rename it back to the original name if you decide later that you want it to load again.

If you don't find the add-in you're looking for there, look in:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Office\x.0\PowerPoint\Addins\

Add-ins listed here may not appear in PowerPoint's Tools, Add-Ins dialog, but may also automatically load at startup. If so, there'll be an AutoLoad entry in addition to the Path entry for the add-in. Again, rename the PPA to PPB to temporarily disable it.

Don't make assumptions about the file names. For example, if you use PowerPoint 97, you'll find entries for PPTTOOLS and PPT2HTML here, but these have nothing to do with RnR PPTools or the PPTools PPT2HTML converter. They just happen to have similar names.

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