How to block Outlook themes for some end users via Group Policy

[tpenn]

Greetings,

We are currently blocking Stationary Fonts in Outlook in Group Policy;
however, people can still go into a new email and go into
Tools>Options>E-Mail Options and select the Personal Stationery tab and
select Theme which is not greyed out. People in our company have found this
back door and are suing it enough that we need to block it.

Any suggestions to additional block Outlook Themes? Let me know.

I look forward to any of our of your replies.

Thanks in advance,

Toni P.

 

[tpenn]

Great! I hope this works...I will try it tomorrow.

 

[Sue Mosher [MVP-Outlook]]

I still haven't found a 100% block, but I'm getting closer. My latest
approach is to use a GPO to mandate that all users use a particular
stationery file. You can modify the administrative template to add a new
policy. The registry value that controls the default stationery for the user
would be in the
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Policy\Microsoft\Office\11.0\Common\MailSettings
key in an expandable string value named NewStationery.

If you set this to a nonsense value, like "dummy," the user won't be able to
choose any default stationery and, since dummy.htm doesn't exist, the user's
default fonts will apply.

Create another string value in the same key named NewTheme and set it to
"dummy" too, and the user's attempt to use Tools>Options>E-Mail Options to
set a theme/stationery will also be ignored.

Or if you really do have stationery you want to use, set the value to the
name of the HTML file, without the .htm tag. In other words, if the name of
the stationery file is "Company Letterhead.htm," the value for NewStationery
would be "Company Letterhead." You'd have to deploy Company Letterhead.htm
to their Stationery folder, of course.

Users could still potentially replace the Company Letterhead.htm file with
one of their own, but they'd have to find the name first.

The one thing I haven't nailed down yet is how to clear the Actions | New
Message Using menu's stationery list if the user has previously used
stationery. Any ideas on that?

 

[tpenn]

Sue,

I am unable to add a new policy in GP Editor. I also cannot edit a
previously created policy. I do not see any option to add anything new. Do
you mean to do this from GP or directly from the registry of each system?
Let me know.

Thanks in advance,

Toni P.

 

[Sue Mosher [MVP-Outlook]]

You should be able to add a new policy by editing the .adm file on the
domain controller.

--
Sue Mosher, Outlook MVP
Author of
Microsoft Outlook Programming - Jumpstart for
Administrators, Power Users, and Developers