--- title: "When exporting an Excel file, an error message occurs stating \"Office File Validation has blocked this file from opening because it may contain harmful content.\"" slug: "when-exporting-an-excel-file-an-error-message-occurs-stating-office-file-validation-has-blocked-this-file-from-opening-because-it-may-contain-harmful-content" description: "When exporting an Excel file, an error message occurs stating \"Office File Validation has blocked this file from opening because it may contain harmful content.\"" tags: ["check-ai", "QA178"] updated: 2024-06-10T08:40:29Z published: 2024-06-10T08:40:29Z canonical: "docs.retailvista.net/when-exporting-an-excel-file-an-error-message-occurs-stating-office-file-validation-has-blocked-this-file-from-opening-because-it-may-contain-harmful-content" --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.retailvista.net/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # When exporting an Excel file, an error message occurs stating "Office File Validation has blocked this file from opening because it may contain harmful content." <span class="fr-marker" data-id="0" data-type="true" style="display: none; line-height: 0;"></span><span class="fr-marker" data-id="0" data-type="false" style="display: none; line-height: 0;"></span>Under Windows 2008 and Office 2010, the error message "Office file validation has blocked this file from opening because it may contain harmful content." occurs when exporting files to Excel. This issue does not occur with Windows 2003 and Office 2010. When exporting a file, the web browser will prompt for "Open" or "Save as". If you choose to open, the browser will create the file somewhere in a temp folder (Temporary Internet files or the User temp folder depending on the OS) and then open it from there. If you choose to save as, you have the option to choose the location. You can save the file first and then open it from disk. Office has settings for handling content from the internet. The message that appears is related to this. More information can be found at the link below. [http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2501584/en](http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2501584/en)