Learning to Use Building Blocks - Continued

It's sad, but true: security improvements go hand-and-hand with annoyance. Adding more hurdles for malware unfortunately results in more hurdles for users. I’d be perfectly happy with not running a firewall and antivirus if malware did not exist. But it does, so I have to deal with adding those extra pieces of software to my system.
Office 2010 has its own security improvements and its own corresponding annoyances, the greatest of which has to deal with file trust. Many older file types from Microsoft have been dissected by hackers over the years, and security flaws have been found. Malware such as macro viruses, which hide in Excel spreadsheet macros, piggy-back seemingly legitimate Office documents as a means of spreading.
By default Office 2010 blocks certain types of documents. They will open, but only in Protected View, which means they can’t be edited. To change this behavior you can open Options in the Backstage area, then go to Trust Center, and then open Trust Center Options. Finally, open File Block settings. You’ll find a number of file types and checkboxes that can be selected to enable or disable handling those files in Protected View.

While you’re there, you might also want to check out the Protected View menu, which determines how Protected View handles files from certain origins, such as those downloaded from the Internet. Just keep in mind that while disabling Protected View might be more convenient, it could open you up to certain malware threats. Microsoft didn’t put the feature into Office because its programmers had too much time on their hands!