AutomationSecurity Property
Returns or sets an MsoAutomationSecurity constant that represents the security mode Microsoft Word uses when programmatically opening files. Read/write.
| MsoAutomationSecurity can be one of these MsoAutomationSecurity constants. |
| msoAutomationSecurityByUI Uses the security setting specified in the Security dialog box. |
| msoAutomationSecurityForceDisable Disables all macros in all files opened programmatically without showing any security alerts. |
| msoAutomationSecurityLow Enables all macros. This is the default value when the application is started. |
expression.AutomationSecurity
expression Required. An expression that returns one of the objects in the Applies To list.
Remarks
This property is automatically set to msoAutomationSecurityLow when Word is started. Therefore, to avoid breaking solutions that rely on the default setting, you should be careful to reset this property to msoAutomationSecurityLow after programmatically opening a file. Also, this property should be set immediately before and after opening a file programmatically to avoid malicious subversion.
Setting ScreenUpdating to False does not affect alerts and will not affect security warnings. The DisplayAlerts setting will not apply to security warnings. For example, if the user sets DisplayAlerts equal to False and AutomationSecurity to msoAutomationSecurityByUI, while the user is on Medium security level, then there will be security warnings while the macro is running. This allows the macro to trap file open errors, while still showing the security warning if the file open succeeds.
Example
This example captures the current automation security setting, changes the setting to disable macros, displays the Open dialog box, and after opening the selected document, sets the automation security back to its original setting.
Sub Security()
Dim secAutomation As MsoAutomationSecurity
With Application
secAutomation = .AutomationSecurity
.AutomationSecurity = msoAutomationSecurityForceDisable
With .FileDialog(msoFileDialogOpen)
.Show
.Execute
End With
.AutomationSecurity = secAutomation
End With
End Sub