XLBuddy supports Microsoft Office 2016+ and Windows 10+. We are not aware of any limitations within this scope.

Installation

Installation is conducted using our .MSI installer. By default it does require the Administrative Privileges but some IT environments may require them to procees with the installation.

Add-in is installed into %LocalAppData%\XLBuddy folder without accessing any other location or system files. Registry entries are only in the user's hive. Add-in registration is done only for user scope - there is no option to install add-in on per-machine scope.

Uninstallation

The add-in can be uninstalled completely through the standard Add or Remove Programs feature in Windows or turned on directly in Microsoft Excel/PowerPoint. The uninstaller removes registry keys created during installation and removes all files from the installation directory except:

• Log .txt files.

• User libraries

It was designed this way to preserve user settings or personal files if add-in was ever to be reinstalled. These files can be manually deleted from %LocalAppData%\XLBuddy. Please note that the XLBuddy uses built-in Microsoft My.Settings class to keep the application settings and these, being part of Microsoft Office, are also not uninstalled.

Updates

XLBuddy checks periodically (at least once a day) if there is a new version available and informs the user about it. This check is done through https request to our server to parse XML file and find out if the new version is available or not. Nothing is downloaded and no update is done automatically. To update, the user needs to go manually to our website, download the new .MSI installer and install (update) the application.

The update can be done without uninstalling the existing installation. User just needs to run the installer and it will update the application to the specific version.

The .MSI installer as well as all .dll’s are code signed with EV code signing certificate from Certification Authority (Asseco Data Systems S.A., Certum Extended Validation Code Signing 2021 CA). All files that require the signing are signed by us or by external 3^rd party provider, like Microsoft. These signatures are always checked before any installation or launch by Windows automatically, but these can also be checked manually. You would see then that the file was signed by “XLBUDDY PROSTA SPÓŁKA AKCYJNA” with Certum Timestamp.

XLBuddy uses limited number of well established and widely trusted external libraries and components. We have limited our usage of such components to absolutely required ones, coding as much as we could to limit potential external vulnerabilities. We can provide a list of 3rd party components upon request. All packages are code signed by the respective owners.

XLBuddy does not use any specific virtualization, packing or other mechanisms, which are often considered as “shady” to allow the end-user antivirus to completely, easily, quickly, and reliably scan the software before installation.

XLBuddy does not collect any data, aside from the simple activation data to verify that the license is legitimate. The server it verifies it with is in Poland, near Łódź (country center). We do not use any cloud solutions like AWS/Azure or any cheaper alternatives. We do not transfer any application logs or any sheet data - application logs are stored locally, we do not aggregate them over the web. Only activation logs for compliance and activation troubleshooting are stored on our server. Furthermore, our ENTERPRISE tier can be configured to be used fully offline, in completely closed/disconnected environments if required by the end-user.