November 18, 1999

Many organizations establish standard settings for Microsoft Office 2000 options, or even restrict user access to some Office features altogether. If your organization has implemented system policies, you can use the System Policy Editor and policy template files to set these options for users.

If you do not have system policies available, you can use the policy templates and Custom Installation Wizard to add the same Windows® registry settings to your transform (MST file). By using these settings to customize user access to Office features and options, you mimic the effect of system policies. When users run Setup with your transform to install Office, your settings appear as the default.

Toolbox    The Office Resource Kit (orktools.exe) includes the policy template files for Office 2000. You can find this downloadable file on the Office 2000 Resource Kit Downloads page.

For example, the Microsoft Outlook® 2000 policy template (Outlk9.adm) includes the Save forwarded messages policy in the Microsoft Outlook 2000\Tools | Options\Preferences\E-mail options\Advanced E-mail options\Save Messages category. This policy corresponds to the SaveFW entry in the HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Office\9.0\Outlook\Preferences subkey.

You can copy this registry entry from the Outlook policy template file, add it to your installation in the Custom Installation Wizard, and set its value to 0. When users install Outlook by running Setup with your transform, their forwarded messages are not saved.

When you restrict Outlook items, they are unavailable in the user interface. In this example, the Save forward messages check box in the Advanced Email Options dialog box (Tools menu, Option dialog box) is unavailable, so users are unable to change the setting.

Note   Sophisticated users can modify registry settings manually to change your settings. If you use system policies, by contrast, users cannot undo your restrictions. Nevertheless, deploying Office applications with default registry settings establishes a common environment at installation and provides a deterrent to most users.

Before you create your transform, open the policy template file in a text editor such as Wordpad and note the entries you want to include in your transform.

To add Windows registry entries to a transform

1. Start the Custom Installation Wizard
2. On the Add Registry Entries panel, click Add.
3. Select the registry key; for example, HKEY_CURRENT_USER.
4. Select the data type, which is provided in the policy template file.
5. Enter subkey, value name, and value data for each entry you want to add, and then click OK.

   You can copy and paste this information directly from the policy template file.

Related links

System policies associate application settings with their corresponding entries in the Windows registry. For more information about working with policy templates, see System Policies and the Windows Registry in the Office 2000 Resource Kit.

System policies allow you to configure Office 2000 to your specifications and even lock down options to varying degrees. For more information about working with system policies, see Managing Users' Options with System Policies in the Office 2000 Resource Kit.