Research Task Pane - Office 2003

[Melissa Mooney]

My company wants to remove access to the Research Task
Pane in all Office 2003 products in which it is
available. I've gone through add/remove programs and
modified my installation of office to try to remove the
feature, but I cannot find the applicable feature. I also
have unsuccessfully attempted to edit the registry to
remove access. I would just remove the button on the
button bar, but this feature is also accessible by holding
down the ALT key and clicking on a word that you want to
research. Any thoughts?

 

[Eric Lawrence [MSFT]]

I'm sure there's a system policy to control access to this pane. Have you
looked in the Office Resource Kit?

--
Thanks,

Eric Lawrence
Program Manager
Assistance and Worldwide Services

This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.

 

[Guest]

I have not checked there, but my company has it and I've
just installed it. Thanks for the advice.

 

[Beth Melton]

Hi Eric,

Do you happen to know the policy or where you can disable the Research
task pane? I've looked but have been unable to find anything. :-(

--
Please post all follow-up questions to the newsgroup. Requests for
assistance by email can not be acknowledged.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Beth Melton
Microsoft Office MVP

Word FAQ: http://mvps.org/word
TechTrax eZine: http://mousetrax.com/techtrax/
MVP FAQ site: http://mvps.org/

 

[Eric Lawrence [MSFT]]

I'll ask. For the moment, the R&R SDK (rssdk.chm) documents the following
settings. None of them hides the pane, but they can be used to ensure that
the pane doesn't contact servers.

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Office\11.0\Common\Research\Options.

Entry name Value type Value data Required? Default value
NoAdd DWORD Boolean used to disable the Add Services button. This
setting prevents the addition of any service except the internal services.
It also disables the discovery mechanism. Possible values include:
a.. True (1). The Add button and discovery are disabled.
b.. False (0). The Add button and discovery are enabled.
No False is assumed if absent.
NoDiscovery DWORD Boolean used to disable the discovery mechanism.
Possible values include:
a.. True (1). The Research task pane never queries discovery
servers.
b.. False (0). The Research task pane can query the discovery
servers.
No False is assumed if absent.
DiscoveryNeedOptIn DWORD Boolean used to ask the user to opt in to the
discovery mechanism. This setting is irrelevant if NoDiscovery is set to 1.
The HKEY_CURRENT_USER version of this value overrides the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE
value. Possible values include:
a.. True (1). Ask the user to opt in to the discovery mechanism.
b.. False (0). Enable the discovery mechanism without asking the
user.

 

[Beth Melton]

Thanks Eric. This information is helpful.

If you happen to find how to prevent it from surfacing I'd love to
know how to disable it. Unfortunately the Alt + Click has many users
viewing the Research task pane as an annoyance rather than the useful
tool it is and currently are only interested in getting rid of it.

--
Please post all follow-up questions to the newsgroup. Requests for
assistance by email can not be acknowledged.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Beth Melton
Microsoft Office MVP

Word FAQ: http://mvps.org/word
TechTrax eZine: http://mousetrax.com/techtrax/
MVP FAQ site: http://mvps.org/

 

[Eric Lawrence [MSFT]]

I'll ask around.

-E

Thanks Eric. This information is helpful.

If you happen to find how to prevent it from surfacing I'd love to
know how to disable it. Unfortunately the Alt + Click has many users
viewing the Research task pane as an annoyance rather than the useful
tool it is and currently are only interested in getting rid of it.

--
Please post all follow-up questions to the newsgroup. Requests for
assistance by email can not be acknowledged.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Beth Melton
Microsoft Office MVP

Word FAQ: http://mvps.org/word
TechTrax eZine: http://mousetrax.com/techtrax/
MVP FAQ site: http://mvps.org/

 

[Carolyn]

I don't know how to get rid of the research pane altogether, but I do know how to limit the services to only Thesaurus and Translation using the following registry entries

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.0

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office\11.0\Common\Research

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office\11.0\Common\Research\Options
"NoAdd"=dword:0000000

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office\11.0\Common\Research\Source]