Sideload office add-in without enabling internet options

Question

I want to sideload an office add-in to my ms-office word application, but do not want to enable the privacy options to allow office to connect to the online services from microsoft.

I have the restriction that the office application should only use my web-addin within our network. But my add-in only loads when I enable the option: "Allow office to connect to online services from microsoft..." (Word > Options > Trust Center > Privacy Options > "Allow office to connect to online services...")

At this time I tried two ways:

• load it from Registry with a Add-In Developer entry
• load it from network share as a trusted catalog (set via registry)

Is there a way to load my add-in anyway by setting registry keys? Maybe somebody has a possible way to load it anyway?

Answer 1

Instead of turning off any connections you may consider using the admin center and deploy add-ins centralized, so the admin could manage add-ins that are allowed to run. See Manage add-ins in the admin center for more information.

As an organization you may wish to prevent the download of new Office add-ins from the Office Store. This can be used in conjunction with Centralized Deployment to ensure that only organization-approved add-ins are deployed to users within your organization.