# Minor and petty, but it's driving me nuts!

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/minor-and-petty-but-its-driving-me-nuts/371833>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [September 7, 2006, 9:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/minor-and-petty-but-its-driving-me-nuts/371833 "2006-09-07T21:09:00Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 7\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Carol\_the\_Impaler](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Carol\_the\_Impaler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Carol_the_Impaler)\
**Post date:** [September 7, 2006, 9:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/minor-and-petty-but-its-driving-me-nuts/371833/1 "2006-09-07T21:09:00Z")

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I hate my Microsoft toolbars!!! I never, ever, ever want to have the Reviewing toolbar or the Adobe 6.0 toolbar open (it’s distracting and makes it harder for me to find the icons I use quickly), but they seem to be on permanent default.

I can turn them off when I open Word or Excel, but they won’t stay off (ya know what I mean?). I’m also opening several Word and Excel docs at a time, so I have to turn them off on each document. When I open Excel attachments, there’s that damn Review toolbar again!

I hate this! I want to set a default such that these two toolbars are never open, but can’t find a way to do this.

Yeah, it’s minor and petty, but it’s driving me nuts.

(Also, why can’t I close more than one toolbar at a time from the pull-down menu?)

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**Author:** ![Carol\_the\_Impaler](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Carol\_the\_Impaler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Carol_the_Impaler)\
**Post date:** [September 7, 2006, 9:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/minor-and-petty-but-its-driving-me-nuts/371833/2 "2006-09-07T21:10:50Z")

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See? I’m so driven to distraction that I forgot to mention this is Word and Excel 2003.

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**Author:** ![yoyodyne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/a9a28c/32.png) [@yoyodyne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yoyodyne)\
**Post date:** [September 7, 2006, 10:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/minor-and-petty-but-its-driving-me-nuts/371833/3 "2006-09-07T22:01:06Z")

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For Acrobat, you can uninstall the PDFMaker, or change these registry entries:

```auto

Excel
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office\Excel\Addins\PDFMaker.OfficeAddin] "LoadBehavior"=dword:00000000

Word
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office\Word\Addins\PDFMaker.OfficeAddin] "LoadBehavior"=dword:00000000

```

For the reviewing toolbar, when someone sends you a spreadsheet attachment with Outlook and they have the “enable reply with changes” option on you will get the toolbar. No way to stop it.

If you save the file once, it should be gone. You can also delete the custom properties for the workbook that start with an underscore.

If you create this macro in your “personal.xls” you can assign a button or keyboard shortcut to it to close the toolbar quickly:

```auto

Sub CloseReviewingToolbar()
    Application.CommandBars("Reviewing").Enabled = False
End Sub

```

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**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\
**Post date:** [September 8, 2006, 1:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/minor-and-petty-but-its-driving-me-nuts/371833/4 "2006-09-08T01:40:17Z")

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So, a software pirate boots up Windows and his Toolbar won’t let him copy programs. “Yarrr, it’s drivin’ me nuts!”

[This message is not intended to discuss or condone software piracy nor to imply piracy on behalf of any specific individual. Software piracy is wrong except for during World War II, the Revolutionary War, and Gulf War I.]

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**Author:** ![Eleusis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f4b2a3/32.png) [@Eleusis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eleusis)\
**Post date:** [September 8, 2006, 8:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/minor-and-petty-but-its-driving-me-nuts/371833/5 "2006-09-08T08:57:36Z")

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You forgot the part about the steering wheel in his pants.

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**Author:** ![Carol\_the\_Impaler](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Carol\_the\_Impaler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Carol_the_Impaler)\
**Post date:** [September 8, 2006, 11:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/minor-and-petty-but-its-driving-me-nuts/371833/6 "2006-09-08T11:35:06Z")

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[QUOTE=Ludovic]  
So, a software pirate boots up Windows and his Toolbar won’t let him copy programs. “Yarrr, it’s drivin’ me nuts!”

[This message is not intended to discuss or condone software piracy nor to imply piracy on behalf of any specific individual. Software piracy is wrong except for during World War II, the Revolutionary War, and Gulf War I.]  
[/QUOTE]

? I don’t get it.

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**Author:** ![Carol\_the\_Impaler](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Carol\_the\_Impaler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Carol_the_Impaler)\
**Post date:** [September 8, 2006, 2:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/minor-and-petty-but-its-driving-me-nuts/371833/7 "2006-09-08T14:16:53Z")

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Gah.

I’ve now had coffee and a shower and a walk to work.

I get it.