This time I would like to share some registry tweaks that might come in handy if you are planning to use or already using the Customer Preview version of Office 2013.
Disable template chooser screen
You have probably noticed that a template chooser screen is opened by default when launching an Office application:
Personally, I find this feature really annoying. I have used other than blank Word/Excel template only very few times. 99% of the times I am launching Word, I am either starting with a completely blank document or opening the existing one. So, I do not really need the template selection screen before I can start. Luckily, this screen can be disabled using this registry modification:
The value created above disables the template screen on all applications of Office 2013. If you find the screen useful on some specific application, such as, for example, PowerPoint, you can override the setting for that specific application creating the following value:
Instead of "PowerPoint" key you can use "Excel", "Word", "Access" or any other name of Office application you want to enable/disable the template chooser screen for.
Disable feedback buttons
As you can see in the screenshot below, Office 2013 applications include the extra button – yellow smiley face – which is designed to allow users to provide their feedback to Microsoft.
If you find this button annoying, you can completely disable it by applying the following registry modification:
Key: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\15.0\Common\Feedback
Value: Enabled
Type: REG_DWORD
Data: 0
Once the above registry modification is made and your Office application is relaunched, the yellow smiley face will be gone.
If you are using Office 2013 actively and you find any issues you really think should be fixed in the final release of the application, I would suggest you to enable the button back (you can do that by setting "Enabled" value data to "1") and use the feedback tool to be sure that Microsoft is informed about the issue you are facing.
Disable inline replying (Outlook 2013)
One of the new features of Outlook 2013 is inline replying. Basically, when you click "Reply", "Reply All" or "Forward" button in the new Outlook, instead of opening a new window to write your email into, it makes the reading pane containing message body editable so you can start typing your reply just in place.
Personally, I really love this feature. The less opened windows you have, the smaller the mess in your taskbar is.
Disable template chooser screen
You have probably noticed that a template chooser screen is opened by default when launching an Office application:
Personally, I find this feature really annoying. I have used other than blank Word/Excel template only very few times. 99% of the times I am launching Word, I am either starting with a completely blank document or opening the existing one. So, I do not really need the template selection screen before I can start. Luckily, this screen can be disabled using this registry modification:
| Key: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\15.0\Common\General Value: DisableBootToOfficeStart Type: REG_DWORD Data: 1 |
| Key: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\15.0\PowerPoint\Options Value: DisableBootToOfficeStart Type: REG_DWORD Data: 0 |
Disable feedback buttons
As you can see in the screenshot below, Office 2013 applications include the extra button – yellow smiley face – which is designed to allow users to provide their feedback to Microsoft.
If you find this button annoying, you can completely disable it by applying the following registry modification:
Key: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\15.0\Common\Feedback
Value: Enabled
Type: REG_DWORD
Data: 0
Once the above registry modification is made and your Office application is relaunched, the yellow smiley face will be gone.
If you are using Office 2013 actively and you find any issues you really think should be fixed in the final release of the application, I would suggest you to enable the button back (you can do that by setting "Enabled" value data to "1") and use the feedback tool to be sure that Microsoft is informed about the issue you are facing.
Disable inline replying (Outlook 2013)
One of the new features of Outlook 2013 is inline replying. Basically, when you click "Reply", "Reply All" or "Forward" button in the new Outlook, instead of opening a new window to write your email into, it makes the reading pane containing message body editable so you can start typing your reply just in place.
Personally, I really love this feature. The less opened windows you have, the smaller the mess in your taskbar is.
Being able to do everything in a single window might be especially convenient when using touch screen. Anyhow, if for some strange reason you do not like inline compose mode, you can disable it with this registry tweak:
Key: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\15.0\Outlook\Message
Value: DisableReadingPaneCompose
Type: REG_DWORD
Data: 1
If you open File -> Account window in any Office 2013 application, you will see notification that the product you are using is unlicensed and requires activation:
If you do not have an activation key (you can actually get one if you have MSDN or TechNet subscription) and you would like to hide that trial notification, you can actually do that with the following registry modification:
Key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office\15.0\Registration\{87D2B5BF-D47B-41FB-AF62-71C382F5CC85}
Value: HideTrial
Type: REG_DWORD
Data: 1
Actually, "Data" might have any data since Office only checks if that value is presented. Also, the numbers (GUID) in the key name might be different on your system if you are using not Professional Plus version of Office 2013 Preview. For Home Premium version they GUID should be
{3252DC27-6CF2-4B0C-B355-B50DAA51F761}.
Once the modification is applied, the screen will look like that (it looks exactly the same as the one of activated Office 2013):
The change described above does NOT change license of your Office 2013 and does not make it legal for unlimited usage.
All it does is hiding the notification showed in the screenshot above.
Be ware that all of the registry modifications listed above (except for the one to hide trial notification) are applied only for a current user and they will not be effective on other users using the suite.
Also, make sure to do backups (right click on a registry key and selecting "Export" does the job) before making any registry modifications.
Key: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\15.0\Outlook\Message
Value: DisableReadingPaneCompose
Type: REG_DWORD
Data: 1
Once the modification is applied and Outlook is restarted, reply function behavior will revert to the one in previous versions of
Office – a new reply window will be opened when Reply/Forward buttons are clicked.Disable trial notification
If you open File -> Account window in any Office 2013 application, you will see notification that the product you are using is unlicensed and requires activation:
If you do not have an activation key (you can actually get one if you have MSDN or TechNet subscription) and you would like to hide that trial notification, you can actually do that with the following registry modification:
Key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office\15.0\Registration\{87D2B5BF-D47B-41FB-AF62-71C382F5CC85}
Value: HideTrial
Type: REG_DWORD
Data: 1
Actually, "Data" might have any data since Office only checks if that value is presented. Also, the numbers (GUID) in the key name might be different on your system if you are using not Professional Plus version of Office 2013 Preview. For Home Premium version they GUID should be
{3252DC27-6CF2-4B0C-B355-B50DAA51F761}.
Once the modification is applied, the screen will look like that (it looks exactly the same as the one of activated Office 2013):
The change described above does NOT change license of your Office 2013 and does not make it legal for unlimited usage.
All it does is hiding the notification showed in the screenshot above.
Be ware that all of the registry modifications listed above (except for the one to hide trial notification) are applied only for a current user and they will not be effective on other users using the suite.
Also, make sure to do backups (right click on a registry key and selecting "Export" does the job) before making any registry modifications.