Protected View Hang, Office 2010, Windows 8.1

When opening e-mail attachments from the internet, Office 2010 prefers to open them in a Protected Mode. This will usually open them in a limited, read-only sandbox mode. You are then given the option to 'Enable Editing' if you'd like to work on the document.

On my Windows 7 PC, these documents open properly in the aforementioned Protected Mode and allows me to then enable document editing if I do so desire.

On my Windows 8.1 PC, Office 2010 will hang at the 'Opening in Protected Mode' splash screen.

Looking at different articles around the internet, this is a quasi-known problem with Office 2010/2013 and Windows 8. Some workarounds that I've looked into include disabling the Protected Mode all together or unblocking the file in question via the Properties panel of an Explorer window. I'm not too keen on disabling Protected Mode and unblocking every file will become cumbersome.

Does anyone know if there was a specific Microsoft KB article addressing this issue? Perhaps an update or something?

Thanks.

 

Yes, this occurs when files are opened directly from web-based e-mail and or files downloaded from the internet.

Yes, I have the same problem if the file is downloaded first, then opened as Windows 8 knows the file was from the internet. It will open correctly if I 'unblock' the file via the file's Properties in Explorer.

 

Thank you for your efforts.

 

Might be worth stating which virus checker you have. I've had a lot of folk with Kasperski or checkers that use the Kasperski engine complain about this.