Third-party add-in is not automatically loaded when you start Visio 2007 or Visio 2003

You may find that certain third-party add-ons are not loaded when you start Microsoft Office Visio 2007 or Microsoft Office Visio 2003. For example, when you install Adobe Acrobat 6.0 Professional on a computer where Visio 2007 or Visio 2003 is installed, Visio does not load the Adobe Acrobat add-on. When you start Visio, the Adobe PDF menu (and the commands that it contains) and toolbar are not displayed in the Visio program window.

You do not experience these symptoms in Microsoft Visio 2002. For example, if you install Adobe Acrobat 6.0 Professional on a computer where Visio 2002 is installed, the Adobe PDF menu and toolbar are displayed in the Visio 2002 program window when you start Visio.

This behavior occurs as a result of a change in behavior in the method that Visio uses to discover and to load add-ons.

To work around this behavior, specify a start-up folder for the third-party add-on. For example, if you installed Adobe Acrobat 6.0 Professional and you want to load the Adobe PDFMaker add-on (the PDFMVisio.vsl file), specify a startup folder for the PDFMVisio.vsl file. To do so, follow these steps.

Note This procedure involves changing the macro security level to the Medium setting. By default, macro security is set to High, where only signed macros from trusted sources are permitted to run and unsigned macros are automatically disabled. When you set the macro security to Medium, you receive a Security Warning dialog box, where you can choose if you want to enable or to disable macros.

1. Start Visio (if it is not already started).
2. Set the macro security level to the Medium setting. To do so, follow these steps:
   1. On the Tools menu, point to Macros, and then click Security.
   2. Click the Security Level tab.
   3. Click Medium. You can choose whether to run potentially unsafe macros.
   4. Click OK when you receive the message that says that the changes that you made take effect the next time that you restart Visio.
   5. Quit, and then restart Visio.
3. Specify a start-up folder for the third-party add-on. To do so, follow these steps:
   1. On the Tools menu, click Options.
   2. Click the Advanced tab, and then click File Paths
   3. In the File Paths dialog box, click the button that is displayed next to Start-up.
   4. In the Choose Directory dialog box, locate, and then click the folder that contains the third-party add-on, and then click Select.
      
      For example, to specify a startup folder for the Adobe PDFMaker add-on, locate, and then click the folder that contains the PDFMVisio.vsl file.
   5. Verify that the path to the folder that contains the third-party add-on is displayed in the Start-up box, and then click OK.
   6. Click OK.
   7. Click OK when you receive the message that says that the changes that you made take effect the next time that you restart Visio.
   8. Quit, and then restart Visio.

In versions of Visio that are earlier than Visio 2003, the Visio engine discovers installed content by searching a specific set of folders (such as the 1033\Solutions folder) on the hard disk. In Visio 2003, the Visio engine does not discover installed content only by searching a specific set of folders on the hard disk. Setup programs that are created by third-party developers can publish descriptions of content to a special location on a user's computer by using the Microsoft Windows Installer PublishComponent table.

For additional information about how to use the Windows Installer PublishComponent table to publish add-ons to Visio, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base: For more information about Visio, visit the following Microsoft Web site: The third-party products that this article discusses are manufactured by companies that are independent of Microsoft. Microsoft makes no warranty, implied or otherwise, regarding the performance or reliability of these products.