How to open a file that is blocked by registry policy setting in PowerPoint 2010, 2007 or 2003?

PowerPoint is an extremely useful tool for creating presentations. You can create high quality presentations with videos, images, sounds, formating and many more by using it. There are some instances where you fail to open your Word document and may receive strange error messages. One of the error message that you might encounter while trying to open your Word file is “ You are trying to access a file that is blocked by registry policy settings”. Let’s discuss the cause of the above error message.

Cause: The above error may occurs if an administrator has restricted a presentations that you are trying to open.

Solution: There are two methods to solve the above problem:

Method 1:

Disable the restrictions: Disable the restriction of the file that you are trying to open. To do this follow below steps.

For PowerPoint 2010

1. Go to File-> Help, click Options.
2. Click Trust Center-> Trust Center Settings.
3. In Trust Center Setting click File Block Settings.
4. Now unchecked the block file type.
5. Click OK and again OK.

For PowerPoint 2007 & 2003

1. Click Start-> Run, type regedit in Run dialog box and click OK.
2. Now locate the registry subkey depending upon the PowerPoint version you are using
3. For PowerPoint 2007:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Office\12.0\PowerPoint\Security\FileOpenBlock
For PowerPoint 2003: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\11.0\PowerPoint\Security\FileOpenBlock
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Office\11.0\PowerPoint\Security\FileOpenBlock

4. After selecting subkey, locate the DWORD value. You can check the different DWORD value based on your PowerPoint version from “More Information” section.
5. Now Right click the DWORD value that you want to change, click Modify.
6. Type '0' in the Value data box and exit.

Method 2. Move the File to a trusted location: To open blocked file, move your file to a trusted location.

Note: In PowerPoint 2010 or 2007, it is possible to move blocked file to trusted location and override registry policy settings however in PowerPoint 2003, there is no trusted location but you can create exempt location to override the registry policy.

Creating exempt location in PowerPoint 2003

1. Click Start-> Run, type regedit in Run dialog box and click OK.
2. Locate following subkeys:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\11.0\Common

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Office\11.0\Common

3. On the Edit menu, Click New-> Key.
4. Name the key with OICEExemptions.
5. Again go to Edit-> New-> String Value.
6. Type the name of string and press enter.
7. Right click the string name and click Modify.
8. Now type the path of file and click OK.
9. Exit editor.