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SharePoint 2010: Office Documents missing properties

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Issue

A user has an issue saying whenever they use any password protected document on SharePoint such as Word, Excel or Power Point their document properties went missing.

 

Error

There is no error however, when you view properties of any SharePoint document they will be missing.

 

Background

User had three mandatory fields on a SharePoint document library. When editing the document after checkout, it allows him to select the properties and save the document. However, when refreshing their SharePoint Library, the document properties went missing.

 

Environment

Windows 7, Office 2010, and SharePoint Server 2010.

 

Troubleshooting

Created a document with the password protection and uploaded to SharePoint to see if it clears out the properties.

Tried doing this with the password protection and its working fine.

Tried the same things on other types of documents and is showing the same behaviour.

 

Resolution

This post explains the reason for this http://mossnwss.blogspot.co.uk/2014/01/document-properties-are-clearing-out.html.

Microsoft claims that this is the by design behaviour that when you protect any document with encrypted password it will protect the meta data associated with the document.

However, there is workaround suggested by Microsoft.

Start –> Run –> regedit

Navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Office\14.0\common\security

 

Note

Version 14.0 is shown if you have Office 2010. Office 2007 will be 12.0, and Office 2013 will be 15.0.

 

Note

You might have to create a few keys 

Look for the property OpenXMLEncryptProperty. If it is not there, create it as a REG_DWORD.  Set the value to 0. 

 

References

 

Applies to

SharePoint server 2010, Office 2007, Office 2010.