We have a vendor-provided corporate application that is integrated into our
Offce 2003 suite (database queries behind the scenes, etc.). The part of the
application that I see is a toolbar in Excel (all machines are WinXP).
Unfortunately, their program is poorly written, and does things like hide
commandbuttons in other workbooks, etc.

When I go into Excel View/Toolbars and click to suppress viewing the
toolbar, it goes away...but the next time Excel is opened, the toolbar comes
back (is automatically visible again). Of course, the presence of the
toolbar itself isn't likely to cause the commandbuttons in other workbooks
to dissapear, but I figure if I can find the code that is auto-showing the
toolbar, I might find the rest of the code as well.

I didn't find any add-ins, nor any files in any startup folders (at least
anywhere I could think of).

So, if you wanted to tick off your customers by figuring out a way to make a
toolbar visible every time Excel starts, how would you do it? I'm asking
because I want to use your ideas to work backwards and figure out where
their code is, so I can figure out a workaround. It is possible that they
might be using some .NET code somewhere that puts the toolbar back anytime
Excel opens, but I wouldn't even know where to look for something like that
if the code isn't in Excel itself. There might also be other directories
where some sort of very hidden add-in might be located that I don't know
about, so any ideas would be greatly appreciated.

Many thanks,
Keith

Hi Keith,

Any application can add toolbars to your Excel interface in the same way as
you would manually or with VBA. If you can't view and amend the code that
does that, as would be the case with .Net, there's probably not much you can
do other than disable the third party app.

My own view is that an app should not add a visible custom toolbar each time
it loads, other than perhaps the first time. Thereafter leave an icon or
menu item on a toolbar to allow the user to make the custom toolbar visible
as needs. Alternatively, if the app and toolbar is relevant for certain xls
files only, make it automatically visible when such a file becomes active.

Perhaps suggest something along these lines to the vendor. If the app is
also hiding other toolbars or buttons at times in work unrelated to the app,
as you imply, that's bad!

Regards,
Peter T


"Keith" wrote in message
...
We have a vendor-provided corporate application that is integrated into
our
Offce 2003 suite (database queries behind the scenes, etc.). The part of
the
application that I see is a toolbar in Excel (all machines are WinXP).
Unfortunately, their program is poorly written, and does things like hide
commandbuttons in other workbooks, etc.

When I go into Excel View/Toolbars and click to suppress viewing the
toolbar, it goes away...but the next time Excel is opened, the toolbar
comes
back (is automatically visible again). Of course, the presence of the
toolbar itself isn't likely to cause the commandbuttons in other workbooks
to dissapear, but I figure if I can find the code that is auto-showing the
toolbar, I might find the rest of the code as well.

I didn't find any add-ins, nor any files in any startup folders (at least
anywhere I could think of).

So, if you wanted to tick off your customers by figuring out a way to make
a
toolbar visible every time Excel starts, how would you do it? I'm asking
because I want to use your ideas to work backwards and figure out where
their code is, so I can figure out a workaround. It is possible that they
might be using some .NET code somewhere that puts the toolbar back anytime
Excel opens, but I wouldn't even know where to look for something like
that
if the code isn't in Excel itself. There might also be other directories
where some sort of very hidden add-in might be located that I don't know
about, so any ideas would be greatly appreciated.

Many thanks,
Keith

We have a vendor-provided corporate application that is integrated
into our Offce 2003 suite (database queries behind the scenes, etc.).
The part of the application that I see is a toolbar in Excel (all
machines are WinXP). Unfortunately, their program is poorly written,
and does things like hide commandbuttons in other workbooks, etc.

When I go into Excel View/Toolbars and click to suppress viewing the
toolbar, it goes away...but the next time Excel is opened, the
toolbar comes back (is automatically visible again). Of course, the
presence of the toolbar itself isn't likely to cause the
commandbuttons in other workbooks to dissapear, but I figure if I can
find the code that is auto-showing the toolbar, I might find the rest
of the code as well.
I didn't find any add-ins, nor any files in any startup folders (at
least anywhere I could think of).

So, if you wanted to tick off your customers by figuring out a way to
make a toolbar visible every time Excel starts, how would you do it?
I'm asking because I want to use your ideas to work backwards and
figure out where their code is, so I can figure out a workaround. It
is possible that they might be using some .NET code somewhere that
puts the toolbar back anytime Excel opens, but I wouldn't even know
where to look for something like that if the code isn't in Excel
itself. There might also be other directories where some sort of very
hidden add-in might be located that I don't know about, so any ideas
would be greatly appreciated.
Many thanks,
Keith

Is there a hidden workbook that opens every time Excel opens? If you click
Window | Unhide (if Unhide is not greyed out) does the name of a hidden
workbook appear? If so, this workbook is set to open each time Excel opens,
via the setting at:

Tools | Options | General | At startup, open all files in: ...

If you find such a workbook, check for code in its Workbook_Open event by
double-clicking on its ThisWorkbook item in the VB explorer window. This is
probably where your rogue toolbar is created and loaded.

Keith
It could be an xll add-in - try searching for *.xll on your local drive for
anything you recognise
or it could be an xla - try a similar serach
Or it could be a COM add-in
of which they are 2 types
user specific - right click in the menu area, then on the commands tab of
the customize box click tool, look down the left to COM Add-ins and drag
that button into a toolbar somewhere. Then click it and see if there are any
add-ins listed, if not, read on
Machine specific COM add-ins can only be checked for directly in the
registry see here for where/how (item 7):
http://www.cpearson.com/excel/StartupErrors.htm

cheers
Simon

Blog: www.smurfonspreadsheets.net
Website: www.codematic.net Excel development, support and training

"Keith" wrote in message
...
We have a vendor-provided corporate application that is integrated into
our Offce 2003 suite (database queries behind the scenes, etc.). The part
of the application that I see is a toolbar in Excel (all machines are
WinXP). Unfortunately, their program is poorly written, and does things
like hide commandbuttons in other workbooks, etc.

When I go into Excel View/Toolbars and click to suppress viewing the
toolbar, it goes away...but the next time Excel is opened, the toolbar
comes back (is automatically visible again). Of course, the presence of
the toolbar itself isn't likely to cause the commandbuttons in other
workbooks to dissapear, but I figure if I can find the code that is
auto-showing the toolbar, I might find the rest of the code as well.

I didn't find any add-ins, nor any files in any startup folders (at least
anywhere I could think of).

So, if you wanted to tick off your customers by figuring out a way to make
a toolbar visible every time Excel starts, how would you do it? I'm asking
because I want to use your ideas to work backwards and figure out where
their code is, so I can figure out a workaround. It is possible that they
might be using some .NET code somewhere that puts the toolbar back anytime
Excel opens, but I wouldn't even know where to look for something like
that if the code isn't in Excel itself. There might also be other
directories where some sort of very hidden add-in might be located that I
don't know about, so any ideas would be greatly appreciated.

Many thanks,
Keith

Many thanks to all for your suggestions. I'll try to schedule access to that
machine and see if I can figure it out. The only bad news is that IT has
locked the registry, so if the other solutions aren't sufficient, I'll have
to deal with some red tape 8-/

Thank you!
Keith

"Simon Murphy" wrote in message
...
Keith
It could be an xll add-in - try searching for *.xll on your local drive
for anything you recognise
or it could be an xla - try a similar serach
Or it could be a COM add-in
of which they are 2 types
user specific - right click in the menu area, then on the commands tab of
the customize box click tool, look down the left to COM Add-ins and drag
that button into a toolbar somewhere. Then click it and see if there are
any add-ins listed, if not, read on
Machine specific COM add-ins can only be checked for directly in the
registry see here for where/how (item 7):
http://www.cpearson.com/excel/StartupErrors.htm

cheers
Simon

Blog: www.smurfonspreadsheets.net
Website: www.codematic.net Excel development, support and training

"Keith" wrote in message
...
We have a vendor-provided corporate application that is integrated into
our Offce 2003 suite (database queries behind the scenes, etc.). The part
of the application that I see is a toolbar in Excel (all machines are
WinXP). Unfortunately, their program is poorly written, and does things
like hide commandbuttons in other workbooks, etc.

When I go into Excel View/Toolbars and click to suppress viewing the
toolbar, it goes away...but the next time Excel is opened, the toolbar
comes back (is automatically visible again). Of course, the presence of
the toolbar itself isn't likely to cause the commandbuttons in other
workbooks to dissapear, but I figure if I can find the code that is
auto-showing the toolbar, I might find the rest of the code as well.

I didn't find any add-ins, nor any files in any startup folders (at least
anywhere I could think of).

So, if you wanted to tick off your customers by figuring out a way to
make a toolbar visible every time Excel starts, how would you do it? I'm
asking because I want to use your ideas to work backwards and figure out
where their code is, so I can figure out a workaround. It is possible
that they might be using some .NET code somewhere that puts the toolbar
back anytime Excel opens, but I wouldn't even know where to look for
something like that if the code isn't in Excel itself. There might also
be other directories where some sort of very hidden add-in might be
located that I don't know about, so any ideas would be greatly
appreciated.

Many thanks,
Keith