An Office document opens in Protected View even though you enable the "Open Office documents as read/write while browsing" policy setting

Symptoms

Consider the following scenario:

• You enable the Open Office documents as read/write while browsing policy setting by using the Local Group Policy Editor or by manually editing the openDocumentsReadWriteWhileBrowsing registry entry under the following registry subkey:
  
  For Office 2013: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\15.0\Common\Internet
  For Office 2010: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\14.0\Common\Internet

• You use Windows Internet Explorer to open a Microsoft Office document such as a Microsoft Word document.

In this scenario, Word opens the document in Protected View.

Note When you enable the Open Office documents as read/write while browsing policy setting, you expect the document to open in read/write mode.

Cause

This behavior is by design in Office 2013 and Office 2010. When you use Internet Explorer to open an Office document, the document is opened in Protected View because the document that is being opened is potentially unsafe.

Resolution

To resolve this behavior, click Enable Editing. When you click Enable Editing, you acknowledge that you trust the document and that the document is from a trustworthy source.

More Information

The Open Office documents as read/write while browsing policy setting controls whether users can edit and save Office documents that they opened in Internet Explorer on web servers.

If you enable this policy setting, the appropriate application opens the file in read/write mode when users use Internet Explorer to access an Office document on a web server.

If you disable or do not configure this policy setting, the appropriate application opens the file in read-only mode when users use Internet Explorer to access an Office document on a web server.

Note To access the Open Office documents as read/write while browsing policy setting, you must use the Local Group Policy Editor to import the Office15.adm or Office14.adm file.

References

For more information about Protected View in Microsoft Office 2013, go to the following Microsoft TechNet website:

Security overview for Office 2013
For more information about Protected View in Microsoft Office 2010, go to the following Microsoft TechNet website:

Plan Protected View settings for Office 2010
For more information about how to obtain the Office15.adm file, go to the following Microsoft TechNet website:

Office 2013 Administrative Template files (ADMX, ADML) and Office Customization Tool (OCT)

For more information about how to obtain the Office14.adm file, go to the following Microsoft TechNet website:

Office 2010 Administrative Template files (ADM, ADMX, ADML) and Office Customization Tool