Setting Outlook Group Policies

When you are in an Active Directory network environment you can set Outlook policies to enforce settings on your users. If you are a home users you might want to set policies on what your children can and cannot do in Outlook. This article explains how you can do this for Outlook.

Download the Policy Templates

The Policy Templates and documentation are included in the Office Resource Kit. Use the links below to download the Resource Kit for your Outlook version.

• Outlook 2000 ORK
• Outlook 2002/XP ORK
• Outlook 2003 ORK
• Office 2007 Policy Templates

Updating the Office 2003 Policies

When you installed the Office 2003 Resource Kit you must update the policy templates.

1. Download the Outlook 2003 updated policies.
2. Run the installer and accept the License Agreement
3. Type a location to extract the file to. For example C:\OutlookOrkTemp
4. Open the folder in Explorer
5. Select all the ADM-files (11 in total) and copy them to C:\Windows\inf
6. You’ll get prompted if you want to overwrite the files. Choose "Yes to All"

Install the Office 2007 Policies

When you downloaded the Office 2007 policy templates you must install them first.

1. Run the installer and accept the License Agreement
2. Type a location to extract the file to. For example C:\OutlookOrkTemp
3. Open the folder in Explorer
   • Windows XP:
     Select all the ADM-files (15 in total) from the ADM\en-us folder (or your localized language when available) and copy them to;
     C:\Windows\inf
   • Windows Vista and Windows 7:
     Select all the ADMX-files (15 in total) from the ADMX and the en-us folder (or your localized language when available) and copy them to;
     C:\Windows\PolicyDefinitions
     If you want to control a Active Directory network environment, then you can also copy them to the Sysvol\PolicyDefinitions folder on a domain controller.
4. If you get prompted if you want to overwrite the files. Choose "Yes to All".
   If you get prompted by User Account Control (UAC), press Continue or provide Administrator level credentials.

Choose where you want to set the policies

Setting Policies in an Active Directory network environment
Setting Policies on the local computer

Setting Policies in an Active Directory network environment

Once you’ve installed the Office Resource Kit of your version you can control the policies via Group Policy Management Editor.
Windows XP users can download it here.
Windows Vista users can download it here.
Windows 7 users can download it here.

1. Open the GPMC through Control panel-> Administrative Tools-> Group Policy Management
2. In the left column browse to the folder Group Policy Objects and select the Policy you wish to enforce Outlook policies on
   
3. Rightclick the Policy and choose Edit…
4. When you use Windows Vista or Windows 7, then the policies will be loaded automatically under;
   User Configuration-> Policies-> Microsoft Office Outlook version.
   When you are using Windows XP then you’ll have to load the templates first;
   1. In the left column of the Group Policy editor rightclick Administrative Templates in User Configuration and choose Add/Remove Templates…
   2. Press Add…
   3. Select the file corresponding with the installed version of the Office Resource Kit
      

      Outlook 2000	OUTLK9.ADM
      Outlook 2002/XP	OUTLK10.ADM
      Outlook 2003	OUTLK11.ADM
      Outlook 2007	OUTLK12.ADM

   4. Press Open and then Close to return to the Group Policy editor. You now will see Outlook listed and you can now enforce settings.

The Outlook 2003 policy template loaded in the Windows XP Group Policy Management Editor

Setting Policies on the local computer

Once you’ve installed the Office Resource Kit of your version you can control the policies via the Group Policy editor. For this we will use the Microsoft Management Console (MMC).

1. Open the MMC by opening the Run Command (Start-> Run) and type MMC
2. In the MMC choose File-> Add/Remove Snap-in…
3. Press Add…
4. Select Group Policy and press Add
5. Press Finish, Close and then OK to return to the MMC
6. When you use Windows Vista or Windows 7, then the policies will be loaded automatically under;
   User Configuration-> Administrative Templates-> Microsoft Office Outlook version.
   When you are using Windows XP then you’ll have to load the templates first;
   1. In the left column of the MMC expand Local Computer Policy then rightclick Administrative Templates in User Configuration and choose Add/Remove Templates…
   2. Press Add…
   3. Select the file corresponding with the installed version of the Office Resource Kit
      

      Outlook 2000	OUTLK9.ADM
      Outlook 2002/XP	OUTLK10.ADM
      Outlook 2003	OUTLK11.ADM
      Outlook 2007	OUTLK12.ADM

   4. Press Open and then Close to return to the Local Policy editor.
7. You now will see Outlook listed and you can now enforce settings which will take effect after you restart your computer. Note that the settings are enforced to all users of that computer even the administrator! As an administrator you can of course change settings through the MMC when required.
   
   The Outlook 2003 policy template loaded in the Windows XP local Group Policy Editor
8. When you close the console you can save the console. This is not required to enforce/save the policy settings but is so that you can easily access the console again. When you do not save the console you’ll have to repeat step 1 to 5 each time you want to change a setting.