Remove shared calendar links from 'Other calendars'

[MaurMck]

I have developed some code in VB to write calendar entries into various
peoples' calendars on an Exchange server. However, after accessing these
calendars, a quicklink appears in Outlook 2003 under 'Other Calendars'. I
want to remove these quicklinks as part of my VB code as a) they clutter the
appearance and detract from other shared quicklinks and b) I don't want the
activating person to be realise that they are able to read the other users'
calendars.
I know they can be removed one at a time by right-clicking and selecting
'Remove from other calendars' but this is time-consuming and defeats reason
b) above.
I have also looked at restarting Outlook with the /resetsharedfolders switch
but the required patch for Outlook has not been installed on our PCs by the
IT department (and they see no need to do so!)
Surely there is some way to remove these shared calendar links by code.

 

[MaurMck]

Apologies for the multiple threads - I kept getting an error that the thread
was unable to be posted.

 

[Ken Slovak - [MVP - Outlook]]

There's a bug in those awful Web forums that does that.

 

[Ken Slovak - [MVP - Outlook]]

The only way I know of to remove those entries is to hack the XML file that
contains the Navigation Pane details. It's named <profile>.xml where
<profile> is the name of the Outlook profile. Of course that only will take
effect when Outlook is started the next time and has to be done when Outlook
isn't running.

You'd have to examine those files and hack the formats to know what to
delete and where.

 

[MaurMck]

Thanks Ken - that certainly looked promising. I cleared all my 'Other
calendars' and the Outlook.xml file reduced in size. The references to shared
calendars in it had gone. I copied this file, then re-opened Outlook, added a
shared calendar, closed Outlook and noted that the Outlook.xml file had
changed. I replaced it with my previously saved version of the file but when
I reopend Outlook the newly added calendar was still there and the
Outlook.xml file had been rewritten to reflect this. Is there some profile
stored on the exchange server which overrides the local file?

 

[Ken Slovak - [MVP - Outlook]]

I've never investigated it enough to understand the mechanics of where and
why, but in some cases shared folders don't stay in that xml file but are
added to the profile information in the registry. In that case you have to
track down those shared folders there and delete them from the profile
information. I've always just found it easier to create a new profile, which
uses a new xml file and takes care of both location settings.