Customizing Built-in Error Messages

How to Disable or Remove Custom Error Messages

You might decide to disable or remove one or more custom error messages. For example, if you don’t want your users to have access to the Internet and you don’t want to redirect them to an intranet site, you can disable or remove all custom error messages.

If you have not yet deployed Office 2000, you can use the Office Custom Installation Wizard to disable or remove custom error messages in your client installation. If you have already deployed Office 2000, you can use a system policy to disable or remove custom error messages.

Note   If you disable a custom error message, the custom button in the error message box no longer appears. The error message will function as originally designed.

Top

Disable custom error messages before deploying Office

If you have not yet installed Office 2000, you can use the Office Custom Installation Wizard to set up your installation so that none of the registry settings that enable custom error messages are created. Note, however, that the Office 2000 Setup program creates registry settings for some error messages by default and that these messages cannot be disabled.

Disable custom error messages for all applications

If you want to disable all custom error messages for all Office 2000 applications, use the Office Customize Wizard to delete the URL in the following registry subkey:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\9.0\Common\General\CustomizableAlertBaseURL

The CustomizableAlertBaseURL entry is the master switch for custom error messages. If there is no URL listed in this entry, none of the error messages in Office are customizable.

When you remove the URL, be sure to remove any custom button text from the following registry subkey:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\9.0\Common\General\CustomizableAlertDefaultButtonText

Disable all custom error messages for a single application

If you want to disable all custom error messages for a single application, such as Microsoft Word, use the Office Customize Wizard to remove any customized error message listed in the following registry subkey:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\9.0\Application\CustomizableAlerts

Remove a single custom error message

If you want to remove a single error message, delete the entry for that error message from the following registry subkey:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\9.0\Application\CustomizableAlerts

Each registry entry consists of a name and a value. The name is the numeric ID for the error message, and the value is the text you added to change the text that appears on the custom button in the error message box.

For example, to remove a custom error message for error message number 46 (a printer error) in Word, you would delete the following registry subkey:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\9.0\Word\CustomizableAlerts\46

Top

Disable custom error messages after deploying Office

If you have already deployed Office 2000, and you want to disable or remove custom error messages, you can use the System Policy Editor.

Disable custom error messages for all applications

If you want to disable all custom error messages for all Office 2000 applications, use the System Policy Editor to clear the following policy:

Microsoft Office 2000\Customizable error messages\Base URL

Disable all custom error messages for a single application

If you wan to disable all custom error messages for a single application, such as Microsoft Word, use the System Policy Editor to disable the application’s List of error messages to customize policy.

For example, to remove custom error messages from Word, you would follow the policy path \\Default User\Microsoft Word 2000\Customizable error messages and clear the List of error messages to customize check box.

Remove a single custom error message

If you want to remove a single error message, delete the entry for that error message from the List of error messages to customize policy.

For example, to remove a specific custom error message from Word, use the following policy:

Microsoft Word 2000\Customizable error messages\List of error messages to customize

In the Settings for List of error messages to customize area, click Show, and then select the Value Name and click the Remove button.

Top

See also

If you don’t want to enable custom error messages for your organization, you can disable them by using the Office Custom Installation Wizard to remove the URL entry from your users’ registries. For more information, see Office Custom Installation Wizard.

The System Policy Editor is another tool you can use to disable custom error messages by removing the URL entry from your users’ registries. For more information, see Using the System Policy Editor.