Skip to main content

Modifying Outlook profiles in Outlook 2010 with VBS and Powershell

Outlook profiles can present somewhat of a challenge to any mail administrator regardless of the size of the mail system. One way of looking at Outlook profiles is that they are just a whole collection of registry settings on a machine which is true but the number and compelxity of structures involved means that if you want to write a script that will modify a particular profile for a particular user its not just as simple as modifying a single registry key. In previous versions of Outlook you could generally rely on the GUID "13dbb0c8aa05101a9bb000aa002fc45a" to locate the key where the values for the Exchange settings are located but if you have done any work with Outlook 2010 on windows 7 you will generally find this is nolonger the case and its now more reliable to enumerate all the keys under a particular profile and find a particular setting which will indicate this particular key has the values for the Exchange Setting you want to modify. The one thing that computers are really good at is processing things quickly so if you wanted to for instance modify the cache mode setting within a profile in VBS you could use the following code to locate the default profile

Set WshShell = WScript.CreateObject("WScript.Shell")
strComputer = "."
HKEY_CURRENT_USER = &H80000001
Set oReg = GetObject("winmgmts:\\" & strComputer & "\root\default:StdRegProv")
keypath = "Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Windows Messaging Subsystem\Profiles\"

profile = WshShell.RegRead("HKCU\"&keypath&"DefaultProfile")

Then enumerate all the keys under this profile to identify the key that has the cache mode value.

oReg.EnumKey HKEY_CURRENT_USER, (keypath & profile & "\"), arrSubKeys
For Each subkey In arrSubKeys
oReg.EnumValues HKEY_CURRENT_USER, (keypath & profile & "\" & subkey & "\"), arrSubValues
on error resume next
for each ValueKey in arrSubValues
if ValueKey = "00036601" then
oReg.GetBinaryValue HKEY_CURRENT_USER,(keypath & profile & "\" & subkey),"00036601",prProxyValRes
if not IsNull(prProxyValRes) then
if prProxyValRes(0) = "132" then
Wscript.echo "Cache Mode Enabled"
else
Wscript.echo "Cache Mode Disabled"
end if
end if
end if
next
on error goto 0
next

If you want to change the setting instead of just echoing it out the current setting then you would need to include something like

newValue1 = Array(&H84,&H05,&H00,&H00)
oReg.SetBinaryValue HKEY_CURRENT_USER,(keypath & profile & "\" & subkey),"00036601",newValue1

Note the hex value that you put in the second array element can vary depending on whether you want to enable the download public folder or shared folders check boxes.

If you think vbs is for mugs and you want to do this in powershell instead then you would need something like this

$RootKey = "Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Windows Messaging Subsystem\Profiles"
$pkProfileskey = [Microsoft.Win32.Registry]::CurrentUser.OpenSubKey($RootKey, $true)
$defProf = $pkProfileskey.GetValue("DefaultProfile")
$pkSubProfilekey = [Microsoft.Win32.Registry]::CurrentUser.OpenSubKey(($RootKey + "\\" + $defProf), $true)
foreach($Valuekey in $pkSubProfilekey.getSubKeyNames()){
$pkSubValueKey = [Microsoft.Win32.Registry]::CurrentUser.OpenSubKey(($RootKey + "\\" + $defProf + "\\" + $Valuekey ), $true)
foreach ($values in $pkSubValueKey.GetValueNames())
{
if ($values -eq "00036601"){
if(($pkSubValueKey.GetValue("00036601"))[0] -eq 132){
"Cache Mode Enabled"}
else{
"Cache Mode Disabled"
}
}
}



}
Labels:

Popular posts from this blog

The MailboxConcurrency limit and using Batching in the Microsoft Graph API

If your getting an error such as Application is over its MailboxConcurrency limit while using the Microsoft Graph API this post may help you understand why. Background   The Mailbox  concurrency limit when your using the Graph API is 4 as per https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/graph/throttling#outlook-service-limits . This is evaluated for each app ID and mailbox combination so this means you can have different apps running under the same credentials and the poor behavior of one won't cause the other to be throttled. If you compared that to EWS you could have up to 27 concurrent connections but they are shared across all apps on a first come first served basis. Batching Batching in the Graph API is a way of combining multiple requests into a single HTTP request. Batching in the Exchange Mail API's EWS and MAPI has been around for a long time and its common, for email Apps to process large numbers of smaller items for a variety of reasons.  Batching in the Gr...
Read more

Exporting and Uploading Mailbox Items using Exchange Web Services using the new ExportItems and UploadItems operations in Exchange 2010 SP1

Two new EWS Operations ExportItems and UploadItems where introduced in Exchange 2010 SP1 that allowed you to do a number of useful things that where previously not possible using Exchange Web Services. Any object that Exchange stores is basically a collection of properties for example a message object is a collection of Message properties, Recipient properties and Attachment properties with a few meta properties that describe the underlying storage thrown in. Normally when using EWS you can access these properties in a number of a ways eg one example is using the strongly type objects such as emailmessage that presents the underlying properties in an intuitive way that's easy to use. Another way is using Extended Properties to access the underlying properties directly. However previously in EWS there was no method to access every property of a message hence there is no way to export or import an item and maintain full fidelity of every property on that item (you could export the...
Read more

EWS Create Mailbox folder Powershell module for Exchange and Office365 Mailboxes

This is a rollup post for a couple of scripts I've posted in the past for creating folders using EWS in an Exchange OnPremise or Exchange online Cloud mailbox. It can do the following Create a Folder in the Root of the Mailbox Create-Folder -Mailboxname mailbox@domain.com -NewFolderName test Create a Folder as a SubFolder of the Inbox Create-Folder -Mailboxname mailbox@domain.com -NewFolderName test -ParentFolder '\Inbox' Create a Folder as a SubFolder of the Inbox using EWS Impersonation Create-Folder -Mailboxname mailbox@domain.com -NewFolderName test -ParentFolder '\Inbox' -useImpersonation Create a new Contacts Folder as a SubFolder of the Mailboxes Contacts Folder Create-Folder -Mailboxname mailbox@domain.com -NewFolderName test -ParentFolder '\Contacts' -FolderClass IPF.Contact Create a new Calendar Folder as a SubFolder of the Mailboxes Calendar Folder Create-Folder -Mailboxname mailbox@domain.com -NewFolderName test -Parent...
Read more
All sample scripts and source code is provided by for illustrative purposes only. All examples are untested in different environments and therefore, I cannot guarantee or imply reliability, serviceability, or function of these programs.

All code contained herein is provided to you "AS IS" without any warranties of any kind. The implied warranties of non-infringement, merchantability and fitness for a particular purpose are expressly disclaimed.