Add-in Security Settings

To enhance security by preventing malicious add-ins from automatically activating, Atmel Studio provides settings in a Tools Options page named Add-in/Macros Security.

In addition, this options page allows you to specify the folders in which Atmel Studio searches for .Addin registration files. This enhances security by allowing you to limit the locations where .Addin registration files can be read, helping prevent malicious .Addin files from inadvertently being used.

The settings in the Add-in/Macros Security, Environment, and Options Dialog Box that relate to add-in security are:

Allow add-in components to load. Checked by default. When checked, add-ins are allowed to load in Atmel Studio. When unchecked, add-ins are prohibited from loading in Atmel Studio.
Allow add-in components to load from a URL. Unchecked by default. When checked, add-ins are allowed to be loaded from external Web sites. When unchecked, remote add-ins are prohibited from loading in Atmel Studio. If an add-in cannot load for some reason, then it cannot be loaded from the web. This setting controls only the loading of the add-in DLL. The .Addin registration files must always be located on the local system.

Default .Add-In File Search Locations

In addition to the security settings, the options page has a list containing folders in which to search for .Addin registration files. By default, the following tokens are included:

%ALLUSERSDOCUMENTS%
%ALLUSERSPROFILE%
%APPDATA%
%VSAPPDATA%
%VSCOMMONAPPDATA%
%VSMYDOCUMENTS%

When Atmel Studio begins searching for .AddIn files, it replaces these tokens with the following path strings:

Table 1. AddIn Files Search Path Tokens
Token	Path
%ALLUSERSDOCUMENTS%	%PUBLIC%\Documents
%ALLUSERSPROFILE%	%ALLUSERSPROFILE% (defined by OS)
%APPDATA%	%USERPROFILE%\AppData
%VSAPPDATA%	%USERPROFILE%\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\AVR Studio 5\<Version> --OR-- %USERPROFILE%\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Atmel Studio 6\<Version>
%VSCOMMONAPPDATA%	%ProgramData%\Microsoft\Atmel Studio 6\<Version>
%VSMYDOCUMENTS%	<My Documents>\Atmel Studio 6

Note: Some of the default paths may resolve to targets that do not exist on your system.

You can remove these predefined tokens from the list by highlighting the token and clicking Remove. To add other folders to the search list, click Add and specify a folder in the Browse for Folder dialog box.