Open Live Writer – Plugin Not Working

While trying to setup and use the Code Plugin by Rich Hewlett I had trouble getting the plugin loaded into Live Writer. I did add the registry entry required as mentioned in the site, but still the plugin did not load.

Registry

Location - HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\OpenLiveWriter\PluginAssemblies

Key - SyntaxHighlight_WordPressCom_OLWPlugIn

Value - C:\Users\Arjuna\AppData\Local\OpenLiveWriter\Plugins\SyntaxHighlight_WordPressCom_OLWPlugIn.dll

After a while I figured out that, when loading the plugin Live Writer encounters the following error.

"System.IO.FileLoadException: Could not load file or assembly 'file:///C:\Users\Arjuna\AppData\Local\OpenLiveWriter\Plugins\SyntaxHighlight_WordPressCom_OLWPlugIn.dll' or one of its dependencies. Operation is not supported. (Exception from HRESULT: 0x80131515)
File name: 'file:///C:\Users\Arjuna\AppData\Local\OpenLiveWriter\Plugins\SyntaxHighlight_WordPressCom_OLWPlugIn.dll' ---> System.NotSupportedException: An attempt was made to load an assembly from a network location which would have caused the assembly to be sandboxed in previous versions of the .NET Framework. This release of the .NET Framework does not enable CAS policy by default, so this load may be dangerous. If this load is not intended to sandbox the assembly, please enable the loadFromRemoteSources switch. See http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=155569 for more information.

This is due to a security feature of .Net Framework 4 or later. Before framework 4, if a DLL is downloaded (which is created in another computer), they used to run in full trust in the zone the assembly is running, but with frameworks 4 and later, downloaded DLLs will not run by default. To make them run, simply grant the DLL full access by going to file properties and selecting the Unblock checkbox in the security section as seen in the below image. This will apply to any plugin you download from internet. Also keep in mind to do this to DLLs you trust safe. Otherwise your computer will be unsafe.

To troubleshoot plugin and other errors you can refer to Open Live Writer log file located in C:\Users\Arjuna\AppData\Local\OpenLiveWriter\Open Live Writer.log.