An old and unsafe Microsoft technology, ActiveX is finally being dropped from Microsoft 365 and Microsoft Office. As usual, there are details and niceties behind the major announcement.
For starters, ActiveX isn’t really being discontinued. Microsoft is disabling ActiveX as a default. If you need ActiveX, a menu, registry or Group Policy change will turn it on again.
What is ActiveX and why is it going away
ActiveX was a way to make connected and interactive blocks that could be embedded into web pages or Office documents. It’s no longer supported and modern browsers like Edge won’t run ActiveX at all.
The biggest ActiveX problem is the lack of security. An ActiveX control has full control over the local computer including files and registry! Hackers can and did use ActiveX to infect computers.
Why was there no security? Back in the mid-90’s Microsoft barely paid lip-service to security issues and brushed off any customer concerns. This was the era when infected Office documents were dismissed by Microsoft as merely “Prank Macros”.
Only later did Microsoft “discovered” that computer security was important.
There should be very few ActiveX controls in modern Office documents but they may be lingering in old code that hasn’t been updated for many years.
Disabled in Office 2024
Starting in new Office 2024, the default configuration setting will be to disable ActiveX objects .
Specifically, if an ActiveX is found the prompt will change from the current
Prompt me before enabling all controls with minimal restrictions
To
Disable all controls without notification.
This change applies to the Windows desktop versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Visio.
Microsoft 365 ‘loses’ ActiveX
The same change of default is happening to Microsoft 365 for Windows, starting in April 2025
Reviving ActiveX
The ActiveX feature will still be in the Office apps, you’ll have to specifically enable ActiveX if it’s needed.
Go to File | Options | Trust Center | Trust Center Settings | ActiveX settings and change to “Prompt me before enabling all controls with minimal restrictions ”
Block ActiveX now
If you want to get ahead of Microsoft’s change, go to File | Options | Trust Center | Trust Center Settings | ActiveX settings and change to “Disable all controls without notification.
”
Registry setting
There’s a Registry entry that does the same thing:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\
Common\Security\DisableAllActiveX
REG_DWORD
0Or find the Group Policy Disable All ActiveX and set to 0.
It’s a change that Office 2019 and Office 2021 users might want to consider.
