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I am new to rubberduck and have installed the latest version 2.0.11. After admin installed, I go to excel and check my com-addins and it does now show rubberduck there. I've check my programdata folder and yes, rubberduck is there with all files ect. It is just not showing up on my add in for excel. Help?

OS: windows 7 pro Excel 2007 64bit

Mathieu Guindon
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2 Answers2

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Disclaimer: I am one of the founders of the Rubberduck project

EDIT 2020-06: Rubberduck does not require administrative privileges to install anymore, and add-in registration occurs during installation. If the installation was made for "all users", the add-in needs to be registered for each user manually - the installer provides a start menu shortcut for this now, but this answer still accurately describes what's going on under the hood, and how to manually make it work.

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Rubberduck is a VBE add-in, not an Excel or COM add-in; if it's properly registered as a VBE add-in you'll find it in the VBE's Add-In Manager, from the Add-Ins menu:

the VBE's add-in manager dialog

note: avoid loading/unloading Rubberduck from that window - there are known teardown issues (most of which are fixed in next release 2.0.12) that don't play well with the VBE's add-in manager.

The VBE looks for available add-ins under the HKCU hive, which is for the current user - if you're not the admin user that ran the installer, the VBE doesn't know there's a new add-in because there's nothing under HKCU that says so.

Per the installing instructions in the project's wiki:

Installing for non-admin users

The Rubberduck installer requires administrative privileges, notably to register the COM types that enable the unit testing feature. Because VBE add-ins need to be registered under the HKCU registry hive, the installer will create the Addins key for the admin user that is running the installer.

To register the add-in for a non-admin user, you need to run the following PowerShell commands:

Set-ExecutionPolicy -ExecutionPolicy RemoteSigned
New-Item -Path 'HKCU:\Software\Microsoft\VBA\VBE\6.0\AddIns64\Rubberduck.Extension' -Force
New-ItemProperty -Path 'HKCU:\Software\Microsoft\VBA\VBE\6.0\AddIns64\Rubberduck.Extension' -Name Description -PropertyType String -Value 'Rubberduck'
New-ItemProperty -Path 'HKCU:\Software\Microsoft\VBA\VBE\6.0\AddIns64\Rubberduck.Extension' -Name FriendlyName -PropertyType String -Value 'Rubberduck'
New-ItemProperty -Path 'HKCU:\Software\Microsoft\VBA\VBE\6.0\AddIns64\Rubberduck.Extension' -Name LoadBehavior -PropertyType DWord -Value 3

This will safely create the required registry keys under HKCU, where the VBE is looking for its add-ins: HKCU:\Software\Microsoft\VBA\VBE\6.0\AddIns64. Note that 32-bit VBA hosts will be looking for add-ins under the \6.0\AddIns key.

Alternatively, you can create the missing keys manually in the registry editor:

registry editor showing the missing keys and values

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Mathieu Guindon
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  • I dont know if that's worth dedicated question, but the only trouble i had so far with RD is that in my office's desktop Excel sometimes "complains" that it is not the "default application" for Excel files or something like that. It's not a problem because everything still goes smoothly but is that something expected or should I worry about it? – A.S.H Mar 01 '17 at 20:48
  • @A.S.H that's something I've never heard of, are you sure RD is behind it? – Mathieu Guindon Mar 01 '17 at 20:50
  • No I'm not sure, just that it didn't happen before I installed RD as far as I remember. – A.S.H Mar 01 '17 at 20:51
  • But still there's no trouble whatsoever with it, because Excel behaves very normally, just that message occasionally when I open it. That's why I did not investigate further the problem. Not sure of the cause at all. – A.S.H Mar 01 '17 at 20:53
  • I don't see how RD would affect that, even remotely! :-/ – Mathieu Guindon Mar 01 '17 at 20:54
  • Ok there must be something else then. Will keep you informed when I have time to investigate that (I dont spend much time there :D) – A.S.H Mar 01 '17 at 20:55
  • You also need to register the DLL for 64-bit like this: `c:\windows\microsoft.net\framework64\v4.0.30319\regasm.exe "C:\ProgramData\Rubberduck\rubberduck.dll" /codebase /tlb` – HackSlash Mar 21 '18 at 19:09
  • Note that one scenario that remains unsupported, is multiple side-by-side Office installs. This includes e.g. Access 2013 installed on top of Office 2016. – Mathieu Guindon Mar 21 '18 at 19:14
  • To run the PowerShell commands in Windows 7 or later, run the PowerShell application that comes installed. (I'm adding this comment for my own benefit; the next time I have to install RD I'll have forgotten why I can't get it to show up!) – Shawn V. Wilson Jun 19 '18 at 16:15
  • @ShawnV.Wilson to be fair the 2.2.x pre-release installers (if you use these, stick with builds before .3310; pre-releases more recent than that have a serious resolver bug, ...which is currently the biggest showstopper for v2.3) handle the COM registration rather nicely, be it per-user or per-machine. The earlier 2.2.x builds only require running the registration "repair registration" from the start menu link, for admin installs. Non-admin / per-user install is smooth-sailing at this point. The 2.2.0 "green release" build did have a few installer quirks though. – Mathieu Guindon Jun 19 '18 at 16:28
  • I had our admin install 2.2.6672.... yesterday, and it was fine, but today when I restarted, RD didn't appear in the VBE menu bar. (It *was* in the Add-In Manager). I ran your PowerShell commands, and its back again. – Shawn V. Wilson Jun 19 '18 at 17:26
  • @ShawnV.Wilson going forward you can get an admin to remove the per-machine RD install (only admin can uninstall an admin install), and then as a non-admin user you can have a per-user install without requiring any admin privs. Per-machine install doesn't (can't) register for non-admin accounts on the machine, but there should be a command in the start menu (IIRC it's mislabeled "repair registration") that spares you from needing to run any PS script. Curious, is that a build with the autocompletion feature? (version #'s are currently mangled on the about box, correct v is on the splash form) – Mathieu Guindon Jun 19 '18 at 17:33
  • @MathieuGuindon I don't know. The splash goes by too fast. – Shawn V. Wilson Jun 19 '18 at 19:52
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Once successfully installed.

ALT + F11 - on opening developer tool in excel. It will show the Rubberduck menu.

enter image description here

DAIRAV
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