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excelms-office

Strange hyperlink handling in Excell, clicking on links always prompts for sign in even when it shouldn't

From my enterprise application, I can export a list of assets into an Excel file or a PDF file which puts a clickable hyperlink that points to the asset. When I open the hyperlink in the browser by clicking on the hyperlink in the excel file, my application prompts me to sign in (which it shouldn't).

This doesn't happen when I click on the hyperlink in the PDF file or manually copy the hyperlink and paste it into the browser window. When I save this excel file as a PDF and then click on the hyperlinks then it works as expected(without re-prompt for sign in). I have also manually created hyperlinks both using the formula(=HYPERLINK) and using the Link context menu and the behaviour is the same in these two cases (Prompted for signing). I have also tried this with word and it's also prompting for me to sign in.

Is Excell/MS Office doing anything additional whenever I click on these hyperlinks and if so how can I disable this functionality? How are external URL's handled in the MS office?

My document would look something like below(with a lot more columns)

enter image description here

Solution

  • This is because when a hyperlink is opened in any word document MS office process it and if it needs to be opened in a browser it opens with a new session ignoring the session id. Some SSO providers do not recognise authentications across sessions and hence prompt for authentication again. This can be avoided by instructing the MS office to open the URLs directly in the browser by modifying the registry key.

    Create a new DWORD named ForceShellExecute and set its value to 1 in the below registry entries (Most probably the registry key will not be present, create a new one)

    For 32-bit versions of Office installed on 64-bit operating systems: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Office\9.0\Common\Internet

    For 32-bit versions of Office installed on 32-bit operating systems, or 64-bit versions of Office installed on 64-bit operating systems:

    HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Office\9.0\Common\Internet

    Note: Even though I have 64bit Office 365 enterprise I had to set the 32bit registry key.

    Links to Microsoft KB articles: Issue explanation and Solution