So what’s the problem?

I have been using the Microsoft Access 2007 object in Visual Basic at work, and attempting to open an instance of Access as hidden. The issue comes up when we distributing the application that we have created.

When the user installs Access 2007 – Run Time Edition, and then runs our application, the Access Window pops up, with the flashing logo.

How do I stop it from flashing?

This is the million dollar question that I’ve been trying so hard to find the answer to.

- Brielfly, I ran a registry comparison tool (RegFormApp) to see what happens when the user clicks on the microsoft logo in an office program.

The program showed that the following registry key was being updated.

 [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\12.0\Common\General]
"OfficeMenuDiscovered"=dword:00000001

Okay, for those of you who use windows registry edit, follow the following steps;

1) Navigate through the tree menu on the left, until you get to the right place.

2) Double click on “OfficeMenuDiscovered”.

3) Change the setting from 0 to 1. Click OK to save the changes.

The .REG File Method
Stick the following into notepad, and then save the file as a .reg extention.

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\12.0\Common\General]
"OfficeMenuDiscovered"=dword:00000001

This will make it into a Registry update file that you can use in installers, etc, to get the setting set!

All I can say is that it’s been a journey.

I hope this post saves you a lot of time and effort in your developments.

1. Open Notepad

2. Paste in:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\12.0\Access\Security]
"VBAWarnings"=dword:00000001

3. Save as filename.reg

4. Run filename.reg, and say YES when it asks if you want to add the registry key.

As you may have guessed, you can add the same DWORD to the other directories like WORD, EXCEL etc.

Version 12 is for Office 2007, but this also works with 11.0, 10.0 versions of OFFICE.

Enjoy Hacking!