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

Updating the Outlook 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"

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 must add the
templates to the Group Policy editor. For this we will use the updated Group Policy
Management Console (GPMC) which you can download
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. In the left column of the Group Policy editor rightclick
   Administrative Templates in User Configuration and choose Add/Remove Templates…
5. Press Add…
6. 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

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

   

Setting Policies on the local computer

Once you’ve installed the Office Resource Kit of your version you must add the
templates to 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. In the left column of the MMC expand Local Computer Policy then rightclick
   Administrative Templates in User Configuration and choose Add/Remove Templates…
7. Press Add…
8. 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

9. Press Open and then Close to return to the Local Policy
   editor. 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.

   

10. 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.