Send to OneNote: The service has not been started

Some days I absolutely hate OneNote.

I like to save questions I find on webpages to OneNote to have as ideas for future tips or macros or to report as bugs, to save recipes and other info), but the Send to OneNote command on the right-click menu brings up this error message:

The service has not been started.

It's frickin' annoying… so much so that I started using Chrome because the OneNote Clipper add-in for Chrome works.

I tried the KB article and FixIt – no luck. I refreshed my install (it worked until I switched from 64 to 32-bit office.) I edited the registry so the path in the registry used the same case as the path in Windows Explorer.

Location: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\MenuExt\Send to OneNote
Default: res://C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office 15\Root\Office15\ONBttnIE.dll/105
Contexts: 37

Then I discovered Send to OneNote worked. Then it didn't. Then it did… Then I realized that it worked on my own sites but did not work on other sites. The light bulb came on and I realized why: I had my sites in IE's Trusted zone. (I think I did that so the Admin password would be saved.) I added another site to the Trusted zone and the Send to OneNote command worked.

To add a site to the Trusted Zone, click on the Gear icon in Internet Explorer, then choose Internet Options. Select the Security tab, then Trusted Sites and click the Sites button. Add the site to the list and close the dialogs.

Don't add sites to the Trusted zone unless you absolutely trust them.

You can also eliminate this error by disabling Protected Mode. In IE's Internet Options, Security tab select Internet Zone and uncheck Enable Protected Mode then restart IE.