VediramOverview
What Vediram Deck is, the problem it solves, and the mental model administrators need
What Deck is
Vediram Deck is a Windows desktop application that controls which Microsoft 365 COM and VSTO add-ins load in Office applications. Instead of editing the registry by hand or fighting with Office's built-in add-in dialogs, users (or IT, through Group Policy) group add-ins into named profiles and switch between them - often without restarting Office.
Deck manages add-ins for Excel, Outlook, Word, and PowerPoint (Office 2016 and later, registry family 16.0).
The problem it solves
Office add-ins are controlled by a per-add-in registry value, LoadBehavior. Changing which add-ins load normally means locating each add-in's registry key, knowing the correct LoadBehavior value, and restarting Office. In environments with many add-ins - trading desks, finance teams, research groups - this is slow, error-prone, and impossible to standardize across a fleet.
Deck turns that into a managed, repeatable operation:
- End users switch between saved profiles (for example, a lightweight "Presentations" profile that disables everything non-essential) from the app or the system tray.
- IT administrators distribute standardized profiles, force specific add-ins on or off, restrict what users can change, and manage Excel
.xllload order - all through Group Policy.
Core concepts
Understand these five terms before deploying Deck:
| Concept | What it means |
|---|---|
| Add-in | A COM or VSTO extension registered for an Office app under ...\Office\16.0\<app>\Addins\. Deck discovers add-ins in both the user hive (HKCU) and the machine hive (HKLM). |
LoadBehavior | The registry value that controls loading: 3 = load at startup (enabled), 2 = do not load (disabled). Deck writes this value when a profile is activated. |
| Profile | A named set of enabled/disabled add-ins. Users can keep several and activate one at a time. The Original profile is captured automatically on first launch so the pre-Deck state can always be restored. |
| Managed profile | A read-only profile defined by IT in a JSON file and delivered through the ManagedProfilesPath policy. See Managing Profiles Centrally. |
| Live toggle | Deck's ability to enable or disable an add-in in a running Office process over COM automation, so a profile switch takes effect without an Office restart. Can be disabled by policy. |
Architecture at a glance
Deck runs as two processes on the local machine:
- UI process (
Vediram.Deck.exe) - the WinUI 3 window and system-tray icon the user interacts with. It holds no state; it asks the daemon for everything. - Core daemon (
Vediram.Deck.Core.exe) - a background service that does the real work: registry scanning, profile activation, policy evaluation, the SQLite database, metrics, and crash analysis. The UI launches it automatically if it isn't already running.
The two communicate over a local named pipe called VediramDeck using JSON-RPC. This is a machine-local channel only - there is no network listener.
For the full picture, see Architecture & Processes.
Deck is local-only
Deck makes no outbound network calls and requires no sign-in, tenant, or firewall configuration. It reads and writes the local registry, a local SQLite database, and (optionally) a managed-profiles file on a network share you control. There is nothing to authenticate and no cloud dependency to allow-list.
Administrator vs. end-user responsibilities
| Task | Who | Where documented |
|---|---|---|
| Install / deploy the MSI | IT | Deployment |
| Distribute standard profiles, force add-ins, lock the UI | IT | Configuration & Group Policy |
| Create personal profiles, switch profiles, view metrics/crashes | End user | User Guide |
Where to go next
- Deploying to a fleet? Start with System Requirements, then Deployment Overview.
- Configuring policy? Go to Group Policy Setup.
- Installing on a single machine? See Installation.