Outlook Express Shortcuts

[Guenni]

Hi everybody!

I'm brand new to this forum. For that reason I'll give you a short description of myself. I'm a programmer and network administrator in a mid size trade company in germany. Among other things I am responsible for setting up user environments on terminal servers (windows server 2003), that means, I give our users (traders) everything they need for their work on their desktop, start menu or elsewhere, and remove all other things. For our company mail traffic we are using Outlook 2003 connected to exchange servers 2003. And here is my problem:

Everytime a user logs on to a terminal server session for the first time (newly created profile) he gets an automatically created shortcut to Outlook Express in his start menu and quick launch bar. We don't need and, in fact, must not have such shortcuts because it is confusing our users! They are often launching OE this way, thinking they would launch Outlook. The next is that I get a phone call of those users asking me why they have to configure a mail profile and how to do so? Nerving!!

On the other hand, I can't uninstall Outlook Express because it is needed by Outlook. But how, for heavens sake, can I prevent Windows from creating those OE shortcuts?? Any ideas??

Thanks in advance, Guenni.

[un4given1]

*opens his copy of Windows XP Registry Guide to page 359*

Remove the following StubPath from the registry:

HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Active Setup\Installed Components\{44BBA840-CC51-11CF-AAFA-00AA00B6015C}

It should be the same on your server product. Make sure you make a backup of the registry before doing this. If that key doesn't exist you can try clicking on each one until you find the product you wish to remove.

Good luck!

[un4given1]

Oh, also you might want to add a logon script to check for the existence of the shortcuts and remove them. Removing the StubPath will only keep Windows from installing them by default, it will not remove them if they are already installed.

[Guenni]

Yes, it works fine :-))

Thnx so much,

Guenni

[un4given1]

No problem. Glad I could help.