Apply registry settings via group policy, server 2003

Question

I Windows 7 Workstations, I need to disable a certain Outlook plugin across the entire domain.

I need to change this D-WORD key in the registry:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\Outlook\Addins\ProLawMSOfficeAddIn.PlOutlookAddIn\LoadBehavior from a 3 to 2, which will disable it.

I found an article about creating a Group Policy for Server 2008 that was promising, but I can't figure out how to achieve it from Server 2003.

Pushing the change via Login Script is not an option. Thank you.

Answer 1

Why can't you use a login script? That's the easiest way to implement this (it'd be a one-liner):

reg add "HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Office\Outlook\Addins\ProLawMSOfficeAddIn.PlOutlookAddIn" /v LoadBehavior /t REG_DWORD /d 2 /f

What you were seeing for 2008 was probably referring to the registry stuff that's in the Group Policy Preferences (GPP), which is a GP addition in 2008, so that's why it's not visible/available in your 2003 domain controller.

If you have a Windows AD domain, you can use GPP without a 2008 server though, it's just a bit of a pain:

• Ensure the GPP Client Side Extensions updates are installed on all the machines (link to XP version for example)
• Go to a Windows 7 client.
• Download the Remote Server Administration ToolKit (RSAT) for Windows 7 from MS.
• Install it and use the Group Policy stuff in there to setup and implement the GPP's you want to use.
• Here's a guide to using GPP for Registry work: Using GPOs to Set Custom Registry Entries

After you implement these settings the older GP tools form 2003 may start throwing weird errors about unexpected entries and such, so just get use to doing all future GP work from a Windows 7 machine with RSAT installed (at least until you get a 2008+ server to work from :) ).