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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"
}
}
}



}
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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.