Remove a VBA Project Reference - vba

Question

In VBA I can see three different references for PDFCreator. One of them (see the second image) is a version of the software stored locally, and it works. I'd like to use this reference.
The other two are references to versions stored on a server, and they're broken (at this stage, I don't have permission to reinstall or delete them).
My problem is that after selecting the desired reference (see the second image) and clicking 'Ok', it resets to an incorrect reference, as shown in the third image.
How can I either override whatever's going on and select the desired reference or remove the incorrect references? While I'm not able to uninstall these versions from the server, I see no reason that my Excel would need to reference them. Can they just be removed from the list?
Image 1: Default state of the VBA Project References (PDFCreator not selected)
Image 2: Selecting the correct PDFCreator version
Image 3: Re-opening the menu shows that the incorrect PDFCreator version is selected

Answer 1

You might be able to something like the following...
To Remove broken references:
Private Sub RemoveBrokenReferences(ByVal Book As Workbook)
'////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
Dim oRefS As Object, oRef As Object
'////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
Set oRefS = Book.VBProject.References
For Each oRef In oRefS
If oRef.IsBroken Then
Call oRefS.Remove(oRef)
End If
Next
End Sub
To Remove a specific reference:
Use something like:
Call ActiveWorkbook.VBProject.References.Remove(oReference)
and you can get the oReference from:
Private Function GetReferenceFromPath(ByVal FilePathName As String) As Object
'////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
Dim oFs As Object, oReferenceS As Object, oReference As Object
Dim sFileName As String, sRefFileName As String
'////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
Set oFs = Interaction.CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")
sFileName = oFs.GetFileName(FilePathName)
Set oReferenceS = ActiveWorkbook.VBProject.References
For Each oReference In oReferenceS
sRefFileName = oFs.GetFileName(oReference.FullPath)
If StrComp(sFileName, sRefFileName, vbTextCompare) = 0 Then
Set GetReferenceFromPath = oReference
End If
Next
End Function

Answer 2

Public Sub RemoveReference()
On Error GoTo EH
Dim RefName As String
Dim ref As Reference
RefName = "Selenium"
Set ref = ThisWorkbook.VBProject.References(RefName)
ThisWorkbook.VBProject.References.Remove ref
Exit Sub
EH:
'If an error was encountered, inform the user
Select Case Err.Number
Case Is = 9
MsgBox "The reference is already removed"
Exit Sub
Case Is = 1004
MsgBox "You probably do not have to have Trust Access To Visual Basic Project checked or macros enabled"
Exit Sub
Case Else
'An unknown error was encountered
MsgBox "Error in 'RemoveReference'" & vbCrLf & vbCrLf & Err.Description
End Select
End Sub
P.S It is not possible to remove A MISSING/ broken references programmatically after MISSING occurs, only before it happens or manually after it happens. Most cases of MISSING/ broken references are caused because the type library has never before been registered on that system.
See How to Remove Reference programmatically?

Answer 3

I had a broken reference problem with a large number of Excel spreadsheets when I uninstalled Flash (which for some unknown reason I had included as a reference).
I got round the problem as follows:
BE CAREFUL BECAUSE THIS INVOLVES A REGISTRY HACK AN IS COMPLICATED.
MAKE A BACKUP OF REGISTRY BEFORE HACKING.
I wrote VBA code to find the Guid of the broken reference.
I used Regedit to insert a DUMMY TypeLib entry as follows:
D27CDB6B-AE6D-11CF-96B8-444553540000 was the Guid of the Broken Reference.
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\TypeLib{D27CDB6B-AE6D-11CF-96B8-444553540000}
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\TypeLib{D27CDB6B-AE6D-11CF-96B8-444553540000}\1.0 Adobe Acrobat 7.0 Browser Control Type Library 1.0
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\TypeLib{D27CDB6B-AE6D-11CF-96B8-444553540000}\1.0\0
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\TypeLib{D27CDB6B-AE6D-11CF-96B8-444553540000}\1.0\0\win32 C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\Adobe\Acrobat\ActiveX\AcroPDF.dll
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\TypeLib{D27CDB6B-AE6D-11CF-96B8-444553540000}\1.0\FLAGS 0
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\TypeLib{D27CDB6B-AE6D-11CF-96B8-444553540000}\1.0\HELPDIR C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\Adobe\Acrobat\ActiveX\
I based the above on another TypeLib entry.
Then I wrote VBA code to read each Reference.Guid in turn and if the Guid matched {D27CDB6B-AE6D-11CF-96B8-444553540000} to remove the reference using References.Remove Reference.
Code for doing this is available all over the forums so I won't repeat here.
After modifying all the affected Workbooks I reinstated the saved registry.
Hope this works for you.
BE CAREFUL BECAUSE THIS INVOLVES A REGISTRY HACK AN IS COMPLICATED.
MAKE A BACKUP OF REGISTRY BEFORE HACKING.