Forum Discussion

Marli van Staden's avatar
Marli van Staden
Copper Contributor
Dec 04, 2017
Solved

AutoSave feature causing frustration

As an independent financial modeller, I work on Microsoft One Drive as it ensures that my work is automatically backed up. This worked well for me until the new Excel AutoSave feature was enabled. ...
office 365
  • Salvatore Biscari's avatar
    Salvatore Biscari
    Dec 04, 2017

    HI Marli van Staden.

    First of all, before editing the registry be EXTREMELY careful!

    If you make a mistake you can render the machine unusable.

    (You should also make a backup of the registry before modifying it.)

    All this said, if you want to try, you have to ADD the "DontAutoSave" key inside "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office\16.0\Excel". The key type should be DWORD and its value should be 1.

    Also, as an introduction to editing the registry, you can give a look to https://www.howtogeek.com/school/using-windows-admin-tools-like-a-pro/lesson5/

    Hope it helps...

Marli van Staden's avatar
Marli van Staden
Copper Contributor
Dec 04, 2017

Ah sorry, I see now - I only looked as far as the Summary where it says

'This feature applies to each document. It can't be disabled on the application level.'

 

I have now followed the steps lower down on the link, but once I get here:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\16.0\Excel

I can't find 'DontAutoSave'...I can only see something labelled 'AutoSaveInterval'.

(Admittedly this is my first time hanging out in the registry, so I have no clue what I am doing...

Salvatore Biscari's avatar
Salvatore Biscari
Silver Contributor
Dec 04, 2017

HI Marli van Staden.

First of all, before editing the registry be EXTREMELY careful!

If you make a mistake you can render the machine unusable.

(You should also make a backup of the registry before modifying it.)

All this said, if you want to try, you have to ADD the "DontAutoSave" key inside "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office\16.0\Excel". The key type should be DWORD and its value should be 1.

Also, as an introduction to editing the registry, you can give a look to https://www.howtogeek.com/school/using-windows-admin-tools-like-a-pro/lesson5/

Hope it helps...

  • Marli van Staden's avatar
    Marli van Staden
    Copper Contributor
    Dec 04, 2017

    Thank you - that makes sense...although it sounds risky for a novice like me to start dabbling in the registry. Perhaps I will wait and see if Microsoft creates a 'safer' solution sometime soon :)

    • Jeff Jamison's avatar
      Jeff Jamison
      Copper Contributor
      May 29, 2018

      It's not really as difficult as it sounds.

      1. Click on the circle beside the Windows Start button in lower left corner - it's the Cortina icon.  Or you may  have a box that says "Type here to Search"
      2. Enter "regedit" - this should open the registry editor.
      3. If you want, click on File/Export to backup your registry.  I would recommend backing it up to an external device (SD card or memory stick).  Make sure the Export range option at the bottom is set to "All".
      4. Now just click on the folders to expand the path to: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office\16.0\Word\
      5. Then Select Excel, Word or Powerpoint
      6. Click on menu Edit/New/Dword(32 bit)
      7. A new REG_DWORD will show up called "New Value #1"
      8. Change the name to "DontAutoSave".
      9. Select that new DWORD and double click or hit enter.
      10. Value box will appear.  Change Value from 0 to 1.  Hit OK.

Resources