Excel file does not open, Its stuck indefinitely in “opening in protected view” stage

Standard

I downloaded an Excel file (It had the PowerPivot Model) from Internet on my Windows Server Dev Machine. When I tried opening that file on my machine it got stuck in the “Opening in protected View” stage:

excel opening in protected view message

I was able to solve the issue and I would document how I did that in this blog-post:

1. Go to START > Open Excel

2. Go to File > Options > Trust Center > Trust Center Settings

excel 2010 trust center settings

3. In the Trust Center. Go to Protected View

Here you can disable the Protected View based on your needs.

Since I wanted to open a file that originated from Internet, I disabled “Protected View for files originating from the Internet”.

Clicked on OK.

4. Now go to File > Open that FILE!

Once you are done, You can enable the protected view. Important!

So That’s about it for this post, I hope it was helpful!