PPTools Registry Entries
For our customers who need to know more about the PPTools installation process, we're happy to provide the following information about what our PPTools installers do and what user rights are needed.
Strong Warning
You never need to edit the registry in order to install, use or uninstall PPTools.
Nothing in the following is intended to suggest that you attempt a manual installation of our software or edit the registry.
We take no responsibility for the results of editing your computer's registry. You can make horrible messes if you make mistakes while editing the registry. You can totally disable your computer.
We provide the following information only for those who need it. If you don't understand what follows or know exactly why you need it, then you surely don't need it.
What our installers do
The installer automatically installs to a PPTools folder in the common documents folder. Older installers used a different default folder and allowed the user to choose an installation folder. If other PPTools add-ins have been installed, the previously chosen directory becomes the default suggested by the current installers.
The installer creates an installation folder and sets registry entries pointing to it. For purposes of discussion, we'll refer to the chosen folder as #InstallFolder#.
The installer creates #InstallFolder# if necessary, then copies files to it, possibly creating subdirectories as needed.
The installer makes the following registry settings:
HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Office\8.0\PowerPoint\AddIns\MASTTBAR Keyname: Path Value: String=#InstallFolder#\MASTTBAR.PPA HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Office\8.0\PowerPoint\AddIns\MASTTBAR Keyname: AutoLoad Value: DWORD=ffffffff hex (4294967295 decimal)
The installer creates the same entries in the PowerPoint 2000, 2002, 2003, 2007 and 2010 sections of the registry, which are the same as above, but with 9.0, 10.0, 11.0, 12.0 and 14.0 in place of 8.0. This installs the add-in for all versions of PowerPoint that are installed on the computer.
Requirements
- ALL PPTools must be installed to the same folder. Other than additional PPTools add-ins, no other PPA (PowerPoint add-in) files should be present in this folder.
- This folder can be on a network drive, but a local installation is preferred.
- The same PPTools installation must not be shared among multiple users.
- The add-in may write other information to subkeys of HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\, so the user must have read/write privileges there.
User rights
From the above, you can see that the following user rights will be needed in order to install and use PPTools add-ins:
- Create/Read/Write access to the chosen installation directory.
- Create/Read/Write access to HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Office\ in the registry
- Create/Read/Write access to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\ in the registry
These registry entries cause MASTTBAR.PPA to load and run when PowerPoint starts up. MASTTBAR.PPA loads any other of our addins it finds in its own folder, and only there. If there are several installations to different folders, only the one pointed to by the registry will load and find addins in its own folder.
Things to be careful of
- Be very cautious about removing registry entries you've created. For example, in order to create HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Office\12.0\PowerPoint\AddIns\MASTTBAR the installer needs to create each entry from Office\12.0 on down the tree if they don't already exist. Most installers will, by default, remove whatever they've created. If that particular section was created before Office 2007 was installed, then Office 2007 was installed, then the add-in was uninstalled (removing the Office\12.0 section on the way) you'd pretty much disable Office 2007. A maintenance reinstall or Help, Detect and Repair solves most of these problems. Not creating the problem in the first place is even better.
- All PPTools add-ins must be installed to the same folder. Our installers look for existing installations (by checking the registry) and defaults to the same folder. If you have several existing PPTools add-ins then add a new one to a different folder, you'll disable the existing ones. Note: reinstalling them to the same folder as the new one will solve the problem.